A Nigerian man, Clement Onuama, 53, has been sentenced to 45 months in jail for taking part in schemes that defrauded people from the US and other countries of over $850,000.
Onuama, who may be deported after he served his sentence, owned a legitimate auto sales and repair business near Arlington, Texas, which prosecutors said became a front for an operation that laundered money gained through “a systemic and long-term fleecing of gullible people.”
“Your conduct here caused untold damage to others and there has to be a consequence for that,” US District Judge William Conley told Onuama, while he was being sentenced, reports Wisconsin State Journal.
Onuama received a sentence that was five months shorter than the one given his accomplice, Orefo Okeke.
Conley said their conduct was almost indistinguishable, but he gave Onuama some credit for having endured repeated civil wars and other hardships in Nigeria as a child and young man before he legally emigrated to the U.S. in 2001.
Despite having had a difficult life, Conley said Onuama learned a trade and used it to better his circumstances until prosecutors said he took part in 19 frauds with Okeke, and made money from 14 of them.
“Onuama’s participation was required to make the schemes work because he was the end result,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Graber wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
“He needed to give his bank account information to the fraudster who provided it to the victim. Without Onuama’s participation as the money launderer, the fraud scheme did not work.”
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