Kho is not trying to get past video case with insanity plea – lawyer

MANILA, Philippines – Dr. Hayden Kho has accepted that making that much-circiulated ande talked about sex video with Katrina Halili was wrong and is not trying to get himself off the hook by making a plea of insanity. This was the statement made by Lorna Kapunan, lawyer of the cosmetic surgeon, in a phone interview with Pia Guanio that was aired live over "Showbiz Central" on Sunday afternoon. "He realizes that what he did is wrong, and in fact, he has confessed," Kapunan said. "He has confessed and asked [an] apology from Katrina." Asked earlier in the show whether Kho would make a plea of insanity in court, Kapunan said: "We are not pleading insanity. In fact, Hayden is saying that he takes full responsibility... The act by itself of videoing a sexually intimate act is wrong. It is wrong whether or not the complainant consented, whether or not they were under the influence of drugs." The issue about insanity became a subject of media speculation after Kho let it be known, through his lawyer, that he has been under psychiatric and psychological treatment since December last year. According to Kapunan, the offense they are tackling is the uploading of the video on the Internet. "He himself is an offended party there," Kapunan said. Kho faces a criminal case for violating the Women and Children’s Welfare Act and an administrative case at the Philippine Medical Association for alleged unethical conduct as a physician. So how did the video end up in the Internet? "According to Hayden, they were made public by a common friend of his and Dra. [Vicki] Belo – Eric Chua," Kapunan said. A computer technician, she said, was also being sought by the Optical Media Board as a suspect in the dissemination of the video. Kapunan noted that the privacy of both Halili and Kho continued to be violated because of sensationalism in media. Last Saturday, she urged the public to be fair in its appreciation of the so-called 'Hayden cam' scandal, pointing out that his client, Dr. Hayden Kho, also had his right to privacy violated with the spread of the sex video. "The public is only showing the side of Miss Halili as a victim," Kapunan said in an interview aired on "StarTalk," GMA's Saturday entertainment program. "Hayden himself is that other individual in that video who has a right to privacy," Kapunan added. "And he certainly didn't consent to his private parts being shown in public." Kapunan, however, told Kho that there was no way to justify making the sex video. "It is really wrong because it exploits the intimacy between two individuals," she recalled telling Kho. According to her, Kho took the video two years ago. The Senate and the National Bureau of Investigation are looking into the case, on the complaint of Halili that the video was taken without her consent and spread through the Internet and DVDs. - GMANews.TV