A Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja Wednesday sentenced one Ibobo Frank to two years imprisonment for defrauding two American women by posing as their white lover.
Justice Kudirat Jose convicted the man also known as James Simmons after he pleaded guilty to a two-count charge of possession of documents containing false pretence, preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
In amended information dated February 2016, EFCC counsel, Mr. A. A. Adebayo, told the court that the anti-graft commission received a petition from “a concerned Nigerian”, who refused to disclose his identity, “that 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.”
He said after carrying out preliminary investigation, EFCC operatives swooped on Westwood Estate on January 7, and arrested Frank.
The prosecutor added that at the time of the arrest Frank had, “in your possession, with intent to defraud, email conversations sent between September 24 and December 18, 2014, containing false information wherein you represented yourself as a white man to one Nancy Rooley.”
He said Frank was also found in possession of email conversations sent between December 15 and 27 “containing a false pretence wherein you represented yourself as James Simmons, a white man purportedly in love with one Shirley Davis.”
Confronted with the evidence, Frank admitted the charges and entered a plea bargain with the anti-graft agency.
Before he was sentenced, defence counsel Tokunbo Olawuyi made an allocutus on behalf of his client.
He 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.
She said: “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.”
