Nigerian “Foreign Official” Convicted Of Various Criminal Offenses In Connection With Bribery Scheme
This previous post highlighted a DOJ criminal enforcement action against Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo (also known as Pollie – a dual citizen of the U.S. and Nigeria who resides in California).
Pollie was an attorney admitted to the State Bar of California and the “sole proprietor of the Law Office of Pollie Okoronkwo where he practiced immigration law and personal injury matters, such as slip-and-fall and motor vehicle injury cases.”)
The indictment alleged that Okoronkwo was also a “foreign official serving as the general manager of the NNPC’s [Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation] Upstream Division” and further alleged the following relevant background.
Who Needs FEPA?
As long as political actors have existed, political actors have taken credit for filling a perceived legal gap by enacting new laws.
Time will tell of course, but query whether the recently enacted Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA) (a law which seeks to capture the so-called “demand” side of foreign bribery) was even needed.
As has been discussed on these pages over the last several years when various versions of FEPA were introduced in Congress, the Department of Justice already has several criminal statutes available to prosecute alleged “foreign officials” who receive bribes and has been prosecuting such cases for a long time.
Two examples occurred in just the past few weeks while much attention has been focused on FEPA and how it plugs a purported legal gap.