A court in the Northern District of Illinois, Chicago on Monday denied suspected fraudster Ramon Abbas popularly known as Hushpuppi bail, stating he would remain in detention until his trial later this year for alleged money laundering.
During the bail hearing, the judge ruled that Abbas will be transported to Los Angeles by the U.S. Marshals Service.
The Nigerian’s trial will now be held in Los Angeles where the case was filed, rather from Chicago where the investigation is being handled.
Abbas’ lawyer, Gal Pissetzky, had sought for his client to be allowed to stay with his girlfriend’s uncle in Homewood, Illinois.
Mr Pissetzky argued that his client was not a flight risk or a danger to the community.
But Assistant United States Attorney Melody Wells convinced the court that Abbas is a flight risk, citing his “significant” financial assets, “deep ties to foreign countries” and a lack of ties to the United States, Forbes reports.
Wells said Abbas had the “perfect recipe to flee the charges that he faces here.”
The prosecutor said Abbas had “never visited” the girlfriend or their child in the United States and that “there is no evidence that he has ever even met this ‘uncle’ who would be the third-party custodian under these circumstances.”
Pissetzky also told the court that as a “loved and respected” person, Abbas “would not want to ruin his credibility and status rather than stay here and face these allegations.”
He said: “Mr Abbas is an Instagram personality. A social media personality. Of course he poses with high price items because that’s what he gets paid to do. That’s what he has built from growing up very poor in Nigeria, he was able to develop himself into this very well-known personality with millions of followers on Instagram. He is an influencer — that is what my kids would call him — an influencer. And people seeing him with these Louis Vuitton bags or clothes, or Gucci bags and clothes, or these fancy cars and they go and want it. They wanna buy it. That’s a job today. As much as it’s hard to imagine — that’s a full-time job.”
Pissetzky, was, however silent on the claim on Hushpuppi’s Instagram feed that the Nigerian works as a “real estate developer”.
Hushpuppi was arrested in the UAE and extradited to the US to face allegations of money laundering running into millions of dollars.
