Supreme Court upholds conviction of Austrian, Pinay wife

An Austrian citizen and his Filipino wife will be spending the rest of their lives in jail after the Supreme Court upheld their conviction by a Batangas City court for estafa and large-scale illegal recruitment.

Karl Reichl and his wife, Yolanda Gutierrez, were also ordered to pay a P100,000 fine and to "reimburse" the P1.3 million they collected from six of their victims whom they had promised non-existent jobs in Italy, Vienna and Europe from 1992 to 1993.

Their co-accused, a certain Francisco Hernandez, remains at large.

In a 20-page decision, the High Court said the accused "represented themselves to the victims to have the capacity to send domestic helpers to Italy, although they did not have any authority or license."

One of the evidence presented by prosecutors was a certification from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) that the Reichl couple and Hernandez were unlicensed to recruit workers for overseas employment.

Prosecutors also presented documents the three had signed, promising to reimburse the jobseekers’ processing fees should they fail to leave for overseas jobs before March 1993.

But the accused reneged on their promise. — Delon Porcalla