Continue after the break.
Okwudili “Cowboy” "Dilly" Umenyiora, who already has pleaded guilty to bank fraud, testified that he convinced Oshinaike to recruit people who were willing to allow checks to be deposited into their bank accounts.
“His job was to go out and find the accounts,” he testified.
Umenyiora testified the account holders will be told a cover story just like solicitations lots of people get via e-mail. The tale would have been a variation of the theme that a person in Nigeria needed help getting money in to the United States. Assistant U.S. Attorney E.T. Rolison said during his closing argument it is a classic Nigeria scam.
“The reason you call it that is because they say, ‘My father is in Nigeria.’ They come up with that story,” he said.
Umenyiora testified he would pay a postal worker at a mail-sorting center in Atlanta $500 each for corporate bank checks. He explained he did not know the man's name, but a person by the name of Andrew Bryant Gunn has pleaded guilty in federal court in Atlanta in experience of the plot and is likely to be sentenced next month.
Umenyiora told jurors he'd take the checks to a man named Guy Taylor, who would change the payee line. Umenyiora said he'd then give the checks to partners who would consequently deposit them into bank accounts.
The financial institution account holder could be allowed to help keep 15 percent of the worth of the check, Umenyiora said. Taylor would get 10 percent and the postal worker was paid 10 percent to 15 percent, he testified.
Mobile resident Rosa Gullett testified that she agreed allowing Oshinaike, whom she knew as “Abdul,” to make use of her account. She said she met Oshinaike through her sister, who was simply dating him at the time. Her mother, Kim Williams, testified that she allowed him to make use of her account, too.
On cross-examination, defense attorney Linda Jensen attacked the witnesses’ credibility. All admitted that they have criminal records. All also received deals from prosecutors in exchange for their cooperation. For Williams and Gullett, adjudication was withheld for a year, after which the charges will be dropped if they stay out of trouble. Umenyiora and co-defendant Adrian Chike Okakpu, meanwhile, got prison terms half as long as the low end of advisory sentencing guidelines.
Incidentally, that’s not his first brush with the long arm of the law, it seems he’s been a career criminal for over a decade as this mugshot from 2001 attests. Back then his offenses included ‘obstructing a police officer’ , ‘Giving a false name or information’ and ‘Driving while license is suspended’:
So this bloke waltz into the private viewing of L’ESPACE with his swag on full blast, I actually thought he was a model ( apparently there is this Nigerian/American Super Model type bloke in town), so armed with my camera, I aimed for a shot. He raised his arm up to signal he didn’t want his picture taken, I smiled but wasn’t prepared to let him off so I asked why not?
The following conversation ensues….
Wasn’t the EFCC set up to specifically check such individuals? I mean, what’s the justification in having a self-confessed and convicted fraudster being given an armed police escort?
I saw his mansion this morning, and i new something was fishy!
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