{"id":55267,"date":"2024-01-11T16:45:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T00:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=55267"},"modified":"2024-01-11T16:45:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T00:45:51","slug":"jury-indicts-calif-lawyer-for-money-laundering-tax-evasion-and-obstructing-probe-of-2-million-payment-from-swiss-oil-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=55267","title":{"rendered":"Jury Indicts Calif. Lawyer for Money Laundering, Tax Evasion and Obstructing Probe of $2 Million Payment from Swiss Oil Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0LOS ANGELES <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"A federal grand jury indicted a Koreatown lawyer with multiple felonies arising from an alleged $2.1 million bribe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo allegedly received the award while serving as an officer of Nigeria\u2019s state-owned oil company in connection with negotiating favorable drilling rights for a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned oil company, the Justice Department announced Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Okoronkwo, 67, of Valencia, who practices immigration and personal injury law out of an office in Koreatown, was charged in a five-count indictment returned on Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Okoronkwo is charged with three counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"brownAccording to the indictment, Okoronkwo, who is a dual citizen of the United States and Nigeria, was a foreign official who served as the general manager of the upstream division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), a state-owned company through which Nigeria\u2019s government developed that nation\u2019s fossil fuel and natural gas reserves, including through partnerships with foreign oil companies. <\/span><\/p>\n

Okoronkwo owed a fiduciary duty to the NNPC and the Nigerian people in this role and was a public official.<\/span><\/p>\n

In October 2015, Addax Petroleum, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of Sinopec, Chinese state-owned petroleum, gas, and petrochemical conglomerate, wired a payment of $2,105,263 to an Interest on Lawyers\u2019 Trust Account (IOLTA) in the name of Okoronkwo\u2019s Los Angeles law firm, purportedly for his work as a consultant who negotiated and completed a settlement agreement with the NNPC concerning Addax\u2019s drilling rights in Nigeria.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"According to the indictment, Addax calculated that it stood to lose billions of dollars if its favorable drilling rights were not secured.<\/span><\/p>\n

Addax signed The engagement letter that month with Okoronkwo\u2019s law office, with a fake address in Lagos, Nigeria, allegedly a ruse.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was intended to conceal the fact that its payment to Okoronkwo was a bribe in exchange for his influence in securing more favorable financial terms relating to its crude oil drilling in Nigeria.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the indictment, to conceal the illegal bribery scheme, Addax falsely characterized the $2.1 million payment as payment for legal services, lied to an auditor about the payment, and fired an executive who questioned the payment\u2019s propriety. <\/span><\/p>\n

Okoronkwo allegedly received the payment in his law firm’s IOLTA to create the false impression that the bribe payment constituted client funds.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"In November 2017, Okoronkwo allegedly used $983,200 of the illegally obtained funds to purchase a house in Valencia.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to money laundering, Okoronkwo is charged with tax evasion for allegedly omitting the $2.1 million bribe payment from his 2015 federal income tax return. He is also charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to investigators when interviewed in June 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

The defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.<\/span><\/p>\n

If convicted of all charges, Okoronkwo would face a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison for each money laundering count, ten years in federal prison for the obstruction of justice count, and five years in federal prison for the tax evasion count.<\/span><\/p>\n

The FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation are investigating this case. <\/span><\/p>\n

Assistant U. S. Attorney Alexander B. Schwab of the Corporate and Securities Fraud Strike Force prosecutes this case.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0LOS ANGELES A federal grand jury indicted a Koreatown lawyer with multiple felonies arising from an alleged $2.1 million bribe. Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo allegedly received the award while serving as an officer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-department-of-justice"],"yoast_head":"\nJury Indicts Calif. 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