Olayiwola Matthew
A United States court has found Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian-American, guilty of receiving a $2.1 million bribe.
Okoronkwo, former general manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), now NNPC Limited, was found guilty of transactional money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors said while serving as NNPC’s upstream division general manager, Okoronkwo abused his position by accepting a $2.1 million payment from Addax Petroleum, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of China’s state-owned Sinopec.
The money, wired in October 2015 to his law firm’s trust account in Los Angeles, was disguised as payment for consultancy services — but was a bribe to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.
During the four-day trial last month, prosecutors presented evidence that Addax executives falsified records to show the payment as legal fees, dismissed internal staff who raised concerns, and provided misleading information to auditors.
Okoronkwo, who practised immigration, family, and personal injury law in Koreatown, later used nearly $1 million of the bribe money as a down payment on a home in Valencia, California, while failing to declare the income on his 2015 tax return.
“According to the indictment, Addax calculated that it stood to lose billions of dollars if its favourable drilling rights were not secured,” a statement issued by the US attorney’s office, central district of California, reads.
“The engagement letter that Addax signed that month with Okoronkwo’s law office — with a fake address in Lagos, Nigeria — was a ruse intended to conceal the fact that its payment to Okoronkwo was a bribe in exchange for his influence in securing more favourable financial terms relating to its crude oil drilling in Nigeria.
“To conceal the illegal bribery scheme, Addax falsely characterised the $2.1 million payment as a payment for legal services, lied to an auditor about the payment, and fired executives who questioned the payment’s propriety.
“To create the false impression that the bribe payment constituted client funds, Okoronkwo received the payment in his law firm’s IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account).
“In November 2017, Okoronkwo used $983,200 of the illegally obtained funds to make a down payment on a house in Valencia.
“Okoronkwo omitted the $2.1 million bribe payment from his 2015 federal income tax return.
“He also obstructed justice in June 2022 when he lied to federal investigators when he told them he did not use any of the $2.1 million to purchase a house and that the money represented client funds rather than income to his law office.”
John Walter, the US district judge, scheduled December 1 for sentencing hearing.
“Okoronkwo will face a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison for each money laundering count, up to 10 years in federal prison for the obstruction of justice count, and up to five years in federal prison for the tax evasion count,” the statement added.