Sandro Muhlach case: Court junks lasciviousness raps

MANILA, Philippines — A Pasay court has dismissed one of the criminal charges filed by actor Sandro Muhlach against two independent television contractors he accused of sexually assaulting him in July. In granting Jojo Nones and Richard Cruz’s motion to quash, Judge Rechie Ramos-Malabanan of the Pasay Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 46 ruled that the charge of acts of lasciviousness was an “overkill.”

Nones and Cruz are not yet off the hook as they are still facing a rape case through sexual assault before the Pasay Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 114.

“The acts of lasciviousness being complained of before this court are necessarily included in the rape charge before the RTC,” stated the ruling dated Feb. 7.

“The prosecution resorted to an overkill by filing the information for acts of lasciviousness when clearly these are constitutive and or simultaneous and are deemed absorbed in the rape case with the alleged sole intent and purpose of arousing and gratifying the defendants’ own sexual desires,” the court added.

Maggie Garduque, lawyer for Nones and Cruz, was elated that the court recognized the “infirmity” of the charge.

“We are happy that the court saw the legal infirmity, which we had been raising since the onset of the case,” Garduque told The STAR yesterday.

She said her clients’ motion to quash the rape case is still pending.

In an Instagram story, Muhlach vowed to fight for justice.

He alleged that Nones and Cruz pulled him from the bed and sexually abused him on July 20, 2024.

Muhlach also accused the two independent contractors of GMA Network of teaching him how to use a “white substance” believed to be illegal drugs.