Two brothers from Nigeria who targeted a 17-year-old in a sextortion scam have been sentenced to 17 years and six months in jail in the US.
The Ogoshi brothers, from Lagos, lured Jordan DeMay into sending them explicit images by pretending to be a girl his age – then blackmailed him.
He killed himself less than six hours after they started talking on Instagram.
It is the first successful prosecution of Nigerians for sextortion in the US, where it is a rapidly growing cyber-crime, often linked to Nigeria.
Jordan’s mother, Jenn Buta, held pictures of her son in court and wept as she read a victim impact statement. “I am shattered to my core,” she said.
She welcomed the ending of the trial, but said there was no good outcome from the tragic case.
Jordan DeMay was a popular schoolboy from Michigan.
Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, sent him a friend request on Instagram pretending to be a pretty girl his age and then flirted with him.
Once they received explicit images from the teenager, they blackmailed him for hundreds of dollars, threatening to share the pictures online with his friends if he did not comply.
Jordan sent as much money as he could and warned the scammers that he would kill himself if they spread the images. The criminals replied: “Good… Do that fast – or I’ll make you do it.”.
John DeMay told Marquette federal court in Michigan he still has nightmares after finding his son dead in his bedroom. He said his family was forced to move home to escape the memory.
The brothers pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to sexually exploit teenage boys in Michigan and across the US.Thirty-eight other US victims were also identified as being targeted by the men. 13 of them were minors. The brothers sat in court in orange jumpsuits with handcuffs.
Their defence attorneys said the brothers’ crimes were fuelled by drug abuse and the sextortion scam culture in Nigeria.
The judge said the crimes showed a “callous disregard for life”, especially given they continued targeting other victims after learning that Jordan has died.
Both brothers apologised to Jordan’s family.
“I’m sorry to the family. We made a bad decision to make money and I wish I could change that,” Samson Ogoshi said.
In the first case of its kind, US police tracked the criminals to Lagos last summer and successfully extradited them for trial.
Another Nigerian man linked to Jordan’s death and other cases is fighting extradition.
Speaking to the BBC in May from Jordan’s family home in the city of Marquette, Jordan’s mother praised the police for their work tracking the sextortionists down.
But she said she had mixed feelings about the Ogoshis being behind bars.
“It’s a relief that someone is being held accountable, but there’s no good that’s coming out of this situation for my family or for the individuals responsible’s family,” she said.
“I miss my son more than I can describe to you, but the mother of those men is probably missing her two sons as well now. She too is really just an innocent bystander of sextortion crime,” said Jenn Buta.
BBC
