By Jude-Ken Ojinnaka
A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on Wednesday, convicted and sentenced a cybercrime fraudster Solomon Martins a.k.a ‘John Scott’ to a prison term of 12 months over cybercrime offence.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned the Solomon Martins before Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke on a two-counts charge bordering on impersonating another on Gmail correspondence.
When the matter was called for the defendant to take a plea, Mr Abbas Muhammed announced appearance for the prosecution while B. Adebayo Ogunleye announced appearance for the defendant.
The prosecutor applied that the charge preferred against the defendant be read for him to take his plea. The court granted his request.
After listening to the charge preferred against him, Solomon Martins pleaded guilty to the two counts.
In view of his guilty plea, the prosecutor, Mr Abbas Muhammed, reviewed the facts of the case and tendered in evidence, documents as well as other instruments such as iPhone 11 used by the defendant in committing the offence.
The documents and instruments were admitted as exhibits by the court.
Having gone through the documents and sighted the instruments admitted as exhibits, in addition to the plea of guilty by the defendant, the court found him guilty and convicted him as charged.
In her allocutus, the defence counsel urged the court to be lenient in sentencing the convict. She urged the court to tamper justice with mercy, stating that the defendant has shown remorse. He is first time offender and pleaded guilty without wasting the precious time of the court.
In his verdict after the allocutus by defence counsel, Justice Aneke sentenced the convict to a term of 12 months at the Nigerian Correctional Service, beginning from March 20, 2024, with an option of N1.5 million fine.
In addition, the court ordered that the convict is to do 100 hours of community service.
The court also ordered a forfeiture to the federal government, of an iphone 11 device and a sterling bank cheque for N100,000 recovered from the convict.
In the charge, the convict was said to have on or about December 1, 2022, fraudulently impersonated one John Scott, a white military male from London, by holding himself out as such through his Gmail correspondence with an intent to gain advantage for himself and defraud unsuspecting victims.
He was also said to have disguised the true source of 1,200 dollars knowing that the funds were derived from unlawful acts .
The offence contravenes the provisions of Section 22(2)(b) of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention) Act 2015. as well as Section 18 of the EFCC Act, 2004
