Three men identified as Kasumu Ademola, Salau Mikailu, and Ganiyu Ishola, have been sentenced to five years in prison by a federal high court sitting in Lagos, for defrauding a stock firm of N45.6m.
The convicts were arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on four counts of conspiracy, unlawful fund conversion, and money laundering before the court to which they pleaded not guilty. They were accused of conspiring and unlawfully converting 298,550 stocks of a deceased man, the late Joseph Adeyemi, valued at N34m. They also unlawfully retained the aggregate of the sum of N9.481m, in their bank account.
Their first arraignment was in 2019 and they all pleaded not guilty to all eight counts and were admitted to bail on various terms. However, the convicts in 2021, informed the court of their intentions to change their earlier not-guilty plea, and they pleaded guilty to the charges.
Though their lawyers, O Muyideen and A. Olufemi, pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy in sentencing the convicts, by considering that they have been in detention since 2018 when they were first arrested, Justice Chukwuejekwu Aneke handed them a five-year jail sentence each after they were found guilty of the crime.