The
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Tuesday, November 13, 2012
arraigned one Etchie Joseph before Justice Adebisi Akinlade of the Lagos High
Court, Ikeja on a three count charge for offences bordering on attempt to
obtain money by false pretence and possession of fraudulent documents.
One
of the charges reads: “Etchie Joseph ( a.k.a Stanley Oberman) on or
about the 30th day of October, 2007 at Pulsenet Cybercafé No. 24
Opebi Road, in Ikeja within the Ikeja Judicial Division had in your possession
a document containing false pretence to wit: an e-mail dated 25th
day of September 2007 purportedly to be written by Stanley Oberman and falsely
represented that Stanley Oberman had the sum of $5,450 ( Five Thousand Four
Hundred and Fifty United State Dollars) to be transferred to Dale”.
Joseph
was arrested by Operatives of the EFCC at a cybercafé in Lagos for falsely
presenting himself as Stanley Oberman and representing himself as a white man
to one Veronica Pena. Joseph claimed to be residing at LA Grange, KY 40031,
United States of America. In his statement, he confessed that he
actually tried to defraud Pena but was not successful and was about to give up
when he was arrested.
However
when the charges were read to him, the accused pleaded not guilty,
prompting the prosecution counsel, Francis Usani to ask the court to fix a
date for trial. However, defence counsel, O. F. Latona, told the court
that he had not filed any application for bail because they got the notice of
the arraignment rather late. He, therefore, pleaded for a short adjournment to
argue the application.
Justice
Akinlade scolded Latona for the request. “You have not presented
any document before the court, not even a bail application and you are
talking about adjournment?” she said. She however adjourned the
case till January 19, 2013 for hearing of bail application and ordered that the
suspect be remanded in Kirikiri Maximum prison.
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