The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has sentenced a Nollywood filmmaker and producer, Olajide Kareem (Seun Egbegbe), to seven years imprisonment ‘with hard labour’ for fraud.
Seun Egbegbe, who had been in detention for 57 months since his arrest in 2017, was, however, released to go home having exceeded the imprisonment time in detention.
Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo sentenced Seun Egbegbe, after convicting him of one of the 44-count charges filed against him by the police.
The trial began on May 10, 2017, and on Tuesday, October 11, Justice Oguntoyinbo found Egbegbe guilty of count 19 of the 44-count charge filed against him.
The judge also freed the four other defendants.
Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo declared that 43 of the 44 counts crumbled because of a lack of witnesses to substantiate their claims.
She also decried that the prosecuting team failed in the responsibility to produce evidence, to be backed with witnesses on counts 4, 19 and 21.
The judge also said that police tampered with the money recovered from the suspects and ruled that all the money recovered from Egbegbe as evidence should be returned to him.
Justice Oguntoyinbo held that having considered the entirety of the circumstances and taking judicial notice of the allocutus, she hereby sentenced the 1st Defendant (Kareem) to imprisonment for a term of Seven {7} years with hard labour, only in respect of Count 19 of the Amended Charge.
According to the judge, the term is to begin from the very first date the 1st Defendant was detained in police custody and/or remanded in prison, whichever comes first.
She also said that the judgement is to send a clear message to all and sundry, the young and as well as the old, the unknown and the famous that, regardless of the number of days a crime goes unpunished, the law would definitely take its course.
