One Ibobo Frank, who goes by the pseudonym James Simmons, was on Wednesday sentenced to two years imprisonment for defrauding two American women after posing as their white lover.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, arraigned the suspect before a Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja on a two-count charge of possession of documents containing false pretence.
The EFCC counsel, Mr. A. A. Adebayo, in an amended information dated February 2016, told the court that the Commission received a petition from “a concerned Nigerian”, who refused to disclose his identity.
According to the petition, a group of small boys living at different apartments located at Westwood Estate, Lekki, Ajah, Badore in Lagos, were living far beyond their means of livelihood, The Nation reports.
Adebayo stated that after carrying out preliminary investigation, EFCC operatives swooped on Westwood Estate on January 7, and arrested Frank who “in his possession, with intent to defraud, had email conversations sent between September 24 and December 18, 2014, containing false information wherein he represented himself as a white man to one Nancy Rooley.”
“Frank was also found in possession of email conversations sent between December 15 and 27 containing a false pretence wherein he represented himself as James Simmons, a white man purportedly in love with one Shirley Davis,” the petition, according to Adebayo, read.
Frank reportedly admitted the charges when confronted with the evidence and entered a plea bargain with the anti-graft agency.
Justice Kudirat Jose convicted Frank after he pleaded guilty.
Before he was sentenced, defence counsel Tokunbo Olawuyi, on behalf of his client said, “Frank is a young man in his twenties and a first time offender.
“He was abandoned by his father at infancy and is the sole breadwinner of an aged mother and a two-year old son.
“He fell into bad company because he had no fatherly figure to guide him in life and he has now fully seen the error in his ways.”
Justice Jose warned Frank against going back to crime and pronounced judgment on him.
According to Jose, “The defendant is sentenced to a term of two years imprisonment to take effect from January 6, 2015, the date the defendant was arrested and detained by the EFCC.
“The defendant shall undertake to be of good behaviour upon regaining his freedom,” Justice Jose ruled.
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