The Federal High Court sitting in Enugu, on Tuesday, sentenced one Okoro Tochukwu Joseph, a final year student of the Institute of Management and Technology, IMT, Enugu to eight months imprisonment for impersonation and obtaining by false pretence.
Joseph who was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in five count charge, pleaded guilty in all the five counts charge.
Subsequently, the trial Judge, Justice Rosemary Dugbo-Oghoghorie, convicted and sentenced him to eight months imprisonment.
The court also ordered that he should restitute the sum of $15,000 to his victim, through the EFCC.
One of the five counts charge read, “That you, Okoro Tochukwu Joseph (alias Donald Wood), on the 11th day of March, 2020, in Enugu, Enugu State, within the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court of Nigeria, while representing yourself to be Donald Wood, a financial investor in crypto currency, by means of a computer system, knowingly sent a message through your Hangout, knowing the same to be false, for the purpose of causing needless anxiety to Lisa Spitler and thereby committed an offence, contrary to and punishable under Section 24 (b) of the Cyber Crimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc) Act, 2015.”
According to EFCC’s statement, Joseph had impersonated Donald Woods and Kennedy Lordan and used pictures of white men to create fraudulent Hangout and Instagram accounts which he used to defraud an American woman, Lisa Spitler of the said sum.
