Judicial worker bags 3 years jail for fraud

A member of staff of the Lagos State
Judiciary attached to the probate
section of the state High Court, Ikeja,
Mrs. Bukola Adeosun, has been jailed
for three years for stealing
government money.



Justice Latifa Okunnu of Ikeja High
Court sentenced Adeosun to jail
yesterday on a three-count charge of
conspiracy, stealing and alteration
preferred against her by the
prosecution.
In her judgment, Justice Okunnu held
that Adeosun was guilty of stealing
N1,114, 000 belonging to the state
government. She, however, absolved
the convict of conspiracy on the
grounds that there was no evidence
linking her conduct with anybody as
claimed by the prosecution.
Adeosun was arraigned alongside
another probate official, Mrs.
Funmilayo Kazeem, both of whom
were accused of defrauding the
government and unsuspecting
members of the public who came for
official transactions at the probate
division of the court. The court,
however, discharged and acquitted the
second defendant (Kazeem) of
conspiracy and stealing, while
Adeosun was convicted of stealing.
According to the prosecution,
Adeosun collected various sums of
money amounting to N1.1 million
between June and August 2008 from
different people and issued them
original government receipts without
reflecting the transactions in the
official records of the treasury of the
court.
She was accused of issuing receipts
bearing large amounts of money,
ranging from N4,000 to N150, 000
contrary to the official directive that
any transaction above N2, 000 should
be paid to the bank.
Delivering her judgment, Justice
Okunnu held that the prosecution
proved the case of stealing against the
convict despite her claim that her
voluntary statements, where she
admitted collecting the money, were
taken under duress.
The judge held that her statements
were voluntarily made and that the
discrepancies in her statements were
undoubted.
She stated: “The first defendant stole
the money belonging to the Lagos
State Government and she had
engaged in unwholesome practices to
swindle the government.”
Justice Okunnu, however, considered
the allocutus by Adeosun’s lawyer
and reduced the jail term to three
years instead of seven years term that
the offence attracts.