Lawyer Jailed 7 Years for Fraud

An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced a private legal practitioner, Domoic Owusu Sekeyere, to seven years imprisonment for defrauding.

The court presided over by Malike Wornya Dey also found the lawyer of 25 years standing guilty of the charge of conspiracy to commit crime to wit- fraud.

Another accomplice, Albert Kwadwo Coleman aka Samuel Yeboah, a Marketing Officer was also slapped with a five-year jail term on each count.

All sentences are to run concurrently.

It is the case of the prosecution that the lawyer, together with three others, on July 4, 2014 at Cantonments in Accra collected $200,000 from one Ato Hamilton, a businessman under the pretext of securing him five plots of land at the said Cantonments.

The four persons, accordant the prosecution two of whom are on the run, failed to fulfill their promise which compelling the Ato to report the matter to the police.

Although the two had vehemently denied the charges, the court after full trial found the accused persons guilty and convicted them.

The facts of the case are that somewhere in June 2014, Ato was contacted by one Samuel Yeboah that he resides in Texas in America and that he had been informed that Ato needed a parcel of land to buy at Cantonments and its environs.

The police said one Dr. Jennifer Jane-Brown Aryee was alleged to be offering her five plots for sale.

Ato was asked to contact one Amoah who is an agent for the sale of the land. The said agent met with Ato for further discussion and went to where the land was.

The prosecution said Ato found out that someone was in occupation of a government bungalow on the land adding that the complainant asked the occupant about the state of the land for sale.

Ato was informed per his check at the Lands Commission that the land was not in the name of Aryee and Amoah led the complainant to the owner of the land.

The complainant after making payment realized that the said land does not belong to the said Dr. Aryee and that the rightful owner of the land who lives outside the country has no idea about the sale of the property.

By: Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson