The third Prosecution Witness, PW3, in the ongoing trial of Nwachi Chidozie Kingsley, on Wednesday, July 3, 2024, told justice U.P Kekemeke of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court, Abuja, how the defendant and his entire family allegedly conspired and defrauded her of the sum of $370,000 (Three Hundred and Seventy Thousand United States Dollars).
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is prosecuting Kingsley on a two-count charge bordering on stealing, obtaining by false pretence and criminal possession of fake documents to the tune of $370,000 (Three Hundred and Seventy thousand United States Dollars).
One of the counts against him reads: “That you, Nwachi Chidozie Kingsley sometime in 2021 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of the High Court of Federal Capital Territory, Abuja with intent to defraud obtained the total sum of Three Hundred and Seventy Thousand United States Dollars($370,000) from Nicole Kierulff Sayers under the false pretence of being a purported payment to finance a contract with Federal Ministry of Works and Housing with Contract No: RC/FGN/0275AN/20 issued to Nwachi Chidozie Kingsley, a claim which you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1(1)(b) of Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act”.
At the resumed trial on Wednesday, Nicole Kierulff Sayers, an American and lawyer by profession in the state of Oregon, United States, was led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, Fatsuma Muhammad and the witness identified the defendant before the court as the man who sent her messages on Facebook during her birthday.
“I know the defendant, the defendant messaged me on Facebook on my birthday and he said he was a member of the same spiritual organization with me. We engaged in romantic discussions and phrases and we engaged in conversations that escalated into a relationship of a romantic type,” she said.
Sayers further told the court that the defendant asked her for money to finance the award of a contract by the Ministry of Works and Housing, claiming that some men were threatening his life if he didn’t provide money to secure the contract.
“Before we met each other, he had asked me for money about eleven days before, and his reason for asking for the money according to him was for the award of a contract by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing and alleged that some men were threatening his life, if he did not provide the money to secure the contract.
“He asked me for help, and supplied me with the details of the contract and logo and all the information, I believed that because I was in a vulnerable state and I had developed an emotional connection with him,” she added.
According to her, the defendant told her that if she gave him $15,000 (Fifteen Thousand Dollars), he would repay her within 45days and she believed him, and transferred the money to the defendant, with an instruction to repay her the money.
Narrating how she transferred the money and how she got to meet the family of the defendant, Sayers said; “I transferred the money using a money transfer app, he received the money and within one week, he asked me to join him in a FaceTime Video with his family. This was his parents’ house and his entire family was there, which included his sister Doris Nwachi, Kenneth Nwachi, sister-in-law Loveline, his father Chizom, his mother Victoria and his alleged daughter, Princess, who was then two years old.”