WEARING the yellow shirt and brown pants of the Cagayan de Oro City Jail, a handcuffed Peter Gerard Scully got off the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology bus and walked toward the courtroom at the City Hall complex for his arraignment on Tuesday.
Scully, 52, pleaded not guilty before Judge Jose Escobido of the Regional Trial Court (RTC).
The 52-year-old Australian was accompanied by his lawyer, Alejandro Jose Pallugna.
It was the first time Scully met his lawyer, who was hired by his siblings. The arraignment had been postponed three times because he did not have a counsel.
Asked why it took so long for Scully’s family to hire him, Pallugna said “it was only last week that the family decided to engage the services of our law office.”
While waiting to enter his plea in court, Scully was seen smoking with his lawyer.
Scully is facing five counts of rape and one count of child trafficking.
Bail was set at P120,000 for each count of rape. Trafficking in persons is a non-bailable offense.
The court scheduled the pretrial hearing on June 25.
Pallugna will be assisted by lawyers Greg Pallugna and George Quimpo.
The charges filed against Scully stemmed from the complaints of two girls, aged 9 and 10 years old, who escaped in September 2014 from his rented house at Apovel Subdivision in Barangay Bulua.
The girls told police Scully sexually and physically abused them, filmed the acts and sold the footage online.
The girls accused Carme Ann Alvarez, the Australian’s Filipina live-in partner, of bringing them to Scully.
Alvarez, who was arraigned in October last year, entered her not-guilty plea again on Tuesday, because the documents of her arraignment were destroyed in the fire that gutted the Hall of Justice building last January.
Pallugna said his client plans to file a motion to turn state's witness against Alvarez. "He was the passive participant here. It was (Alvarez) who was the active participant," the lawyer said.
He said the woman's state-appointed lawyer plans to turn her into a state witness against Scully.
Scully would soon be facing arraignment on his alleged rape and child trafficking charges pending at the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Manila. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is readying the charges from the alleged nine child victims who are also from Cagayan de Oro.
Pallugna represented three Swedes who were allegedly running a cybersex den in the city in 2011. The Swedes are imprisoned in Davao Penal Colony.