Olalekan Jacob Ponle, Mr Woodberry, who was convicted in 2023 for defrauding individuals and businesses of millions of dollars, has asked the United States Court of Appeals to reduce his eight-year jail term on the grounds that the sentence was wrongly calculated, Peoples Gazette is reporting.
Woodberry argued he is being unfairly imprisoned with harsh restitution both for the crimes he planned to commit and the ones he actually committed, according to U.S. Seventh Circuit court documents.
Woodberry had set out to defraud individuals and entities of over $51 million but only ended up scamming his victims of approximately $8 million because some of them were quick to catch on to his schemes and refused to transfer their money. He was asked to pay the $8 million as restitution to seven of his identified victims.
American prosecutors had relied on a sentencing guideline that recommended Mr Woodberry’s offence level be enhanced by 22 levels, which inflicted h@rsher punishment on the infamous internet fraudster first arrested in Dubai in 2020 and promptly transferred to Chicago to stand trial. The 14-year prison recommendation was reduced to 11 years at sentencing by the presiding judge, Robert Gettleman of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
According to the guideline, “loss” was determined to be “the greater of the actual or intended loss.” In this case, $51 million, being the higher figure victims would have lost to Mr Woodberry’s email fraud scheme, was used to calculate his eight-year sentence. Since Woodberry’s criminal conduct exceeded $25 million, his offence level was raised by 22 levels with a corresponding jail term, prosecutors said in a January 8 brief to the appeals court.
