Hushpuppi, the embattled Nigerian socialite, has agreed to
plead guilty to the money laundering charge against him.
Hushpuppi, who is known for his luxury lifestyle, was
arrested in the UAE in June 2020 alongside 11 of his associates over allegations
bordering on hacking, impersonation, scamming, banking fraud, and identity
theft.
The social media figure’s extradition to the US had followed
after the UAE police detailed his arrest in a special operation dubbed ‘Fox
Hunt 2’ where he was accused of defrauding 1.9 million victims to the tune of
N168 billion.
Hushpuppi, whose real name is Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, was
arraigned and detained at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Chicago
ahead of his trial.
A partly redacted plea agreement document in the cyber fraud
case against him surfaced online on Wednesday.
In the court file signed by Loius Shapiro, Hushpuppi’s
lawyer, on behalf of the defendant, Hushpuppi agreed to give up the right to
indictment by a grand jury and plead guilty to count two of the trial “Case No.
2:20-CR-00322-ODW.”
The referenced court case, it is understood, charges
Hushpuppi with “conspiracy to engage in money laundering.”
Added the Ramon Abbas/Hushpuppi plea agreement to @courtlistener / @RECAPtheLaw, for interested folks (and because there's been a lot of bad information around this case from the beginning): https://t.co/uHJlir4rD4
— Evan Ratliff (@ev_rat) July 28, 2021
For a person to be deemed guilty of the crime, the document
read, “there was an agreement between two or more persons to conduct a
financial transaction involving property that represented the proceeds of wire
fraud.”
It also added that the defendant must have known that the
funds were “proceeds of some form of unlawful activity” and the transaction was
designed “to conceal the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the
proceeds.”
Hushpuppi risks a statutory maximum of 20 years imprisonment
on agreeing to violate the USC, Section 1956 (h).
“The defendant understands that the statutory maximum
sentence that the Court can impose for a violation of Title 18, United States
Code, Section 1956(h), as charged in the Information, is: 20 years
imprisonment,” the file read.
“…a 3-year period of supervised release; a fine of $500,000 or twice the gross gain or gross loss resulting from the offense, whichever is greatest; and a mandatory special assessment of $100.
“Defendant understands that defendant will be required to
pay full restitution to the victim(s) of the offense to which defendant is
pleading guilty.
“Defendant agrees that the court may order restitution to persons other than the victim(s) of the offenses to which defendant is pleading guilty and in amounts greater than those alleged in the count.”
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everydayAdvertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com