A graduate of Lead City University,
Ibadan, who passed out with 1st-class honors has been sentenced to one-year imprisonment
after pleading guilty to a two-count charge of conspiracy and obtaining money
under false pretences.
Olakunle Akanni was sentenced yesterday Nov. 4th at the Ikeja High Court in Lagos for defrauding a 77 year-old American woman, Diana Huizenga, of over 12,000 dollars through an internet love scam.
One of his accomplices, Adesina Akinsola, 30, was also given a similar sentence by the judge but adjourned the sentencing of their co-accused, 30-year-old Dele Oshuntogun, till Nov. 17.
Olakunle Akanni was sentenced yesterday Nov. 4th at the Ikeja High Court in Lagos for defrauding a 77 year-old American woman, Diana Huizenga, of over 12,000 dollars through an internet love scam.
One of his accomplices, Adesina Akinsola, 30, was also given a similar sentence by the judge but adjourned the sentencing of their co-accused, 30-year-old Dele Oshuntogun, till Nov. 17.
There are reports that the convicts
entered a plea bargain with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC). Lawal-Akapo consequently sentenced them to one year imprisonment on
each of the counts.
He said the sentences were to run
concurrently beginning from the day the judgment was delivered.
“The first defendant, Olakunle
Akanni, is to pay the sum of N2 million which is the equivalent of $12, 820 to
the victim (Huizenga), as restitution. Also, the third defendant, Akinsola, is
to pay the sum of N500, 000 to the victim as restitution,” the judge ordered.
He also ordered them to write an
undertaken to be submitted to the EFCC that they would be of good behaviour
upon their release from prison custody.
Mrs Zainab Ettuh , the EFCC counsel,
narrating the facts of the case, told the court that the convicts committed the
offences between December 2010 and February 2012 in Lagos.
She said Olakunle Akanni falsely
presented himself to Huizenga as one Robert Lewis, a white American
living in Nigeria, who was in love with her.
According to her, "the convicts
used the “love scam” to fleece the woman and even invited her to come to
Nigeria with $90,000 before they were apprehended".
Mrs Zainab Ettuh said their offences
contravened Section 419 of the Criminal Code, Laws of Lagos State, 2003.
Source: NAN
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