2 girls withdraw lasciviousness cases filed vs. Italian national

Two girls have recently executed affidavits of desistance and withdrew the acts of lasciviousness cases they filed a month ago against their former employer, an Italian national who owned a restaurant in uptown Cebu City.

In their affidavits, both minors said the documents they signed accusing Renato Benedetti, former owner of Café Le Grand Soleil along Ramos Street, of acts of lasciviousness contained false statements that may send an innocent person to jail.

They alleged that a former business partner of Benedetti fabricated the statements in their complaints, which they were made to sign later in filing their complaints. They also blamed themselves for cooperating with the former business partner.

They also stated in their affidavits of desistance that financial reasons forced them to file the complaints against Benedetti.

There were actually three of them who were supposed to file the cases but the third one backed out upon reading that the statements in the complaints were all false, they said.

Last March, one of the two girls charged Benedetti at the Cebu City prosecutor's office of acts of lasciviousness while the other girl filed her own similar complaint at the Mandaue City prosecutor's office against the Italian national.

The first girl narrated that, last May, Benedetti offered to employ her for P100 a day, an offer that she readily accepted. She said that he later brought her to a shopping spree then asked her to stay in his house where the sexual molestation allegedly occurred.

A month after, she decided to quit her job and sought the help of the Legal Alternatives for Women group.

The other girl, on the other hand, said Benedetti also offered her work in his restaurant for P100 a day. She accepted and, after a couple of days working in his restaurant, she went to live in his house where she was also allegedly molested on two occasions. - Flor Z. Perolina