Celebrity doctor likely to serve 7-year jail term for not paying SSS premiums

A CELEBRITY doctor appeared to have ultimately lost his legal battle and would likely spend seven years in jail for non-payment of Social Security System (SSS) contributions of his employees.

The Supreme Court (SC) has junked a petition filed by Mendez seeking to overturn a Court of Appeals (CA) decision affirming the seven-year jail term imposed upon him by the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Quezon City which found him guilty of violating the provisions of Republic Act 8282 otherwise known as Social Security Act of 1997.

In a six-page resolution released last July 31, the SC’s First Division found no merit to Mendez’s claim that the CA’s former Special Eight Division through Associate Justices Edwin Sorongon, Sesinando Villon, and Marie Christine Azcarraga-Jacob committed grave abuse of discretion when they dismissed his petition to set aside his conviction by the RTC.

In his appeal to the SC, Mendez invoked anew alleged “extrinsic fraud” on the part of his lawyer in seeking reconsideration of the CA’s ruling.

Mendez claimed that the failure of his former counsel to attend hearings on his behalf to present pieces of evidence, his counsel’s failure to inform him of the hearings, and that his presence was required during the proceedings were tantamount to “extrinsic fraud.”

Extrinsic fraud refers to “fraudulent act of the prevailing party in litigation committed outside of the trial of the case, whereby the defeated party is prevented from fully exhibiting his side of the case by fraud or deception practiced on him by his opponent, such as by keeping him away from court; by giving him a false promise of a compromise; or where the defendant never had the knowledge of the suit, being kept in ignorance by the acts of plaintiff; or where an attorney fraudulently or without authority connives at his defeat.”