Court acquits Filmmaker Seun Egbegbe of fraud charges
A Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the release of filmmaker, Seun Egbegbe, from prison.
The order comes after the filmmaker had spent five years and eight months in prison custody.
In February 2017, the entertainer was remanded in prison after allegedly obtaining money by false pretence from no fewer than 40 Bureaux De Change operators in different parts of Lagos for over a period of two years between 2015 and 2017.
Furthermore, He was accused of swindling the BDC operators by claiming that he had naira to change into foreign currencies.
Out of 44 count charges against him, Egbegbe was found guilty of only one count, Count 19 and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
The Police arraigned the filmmaker for alleged fraud of N39m; $90,000 and £12,550, N39,098,100, respectively.
The 45-year-old was arraigned on a 36-count charge bordering on advance fee fraud alongside Oyekan Ayomide.
The charge leveled against him and Ayomide increased to 44 after three others — Lawal Kareem, Olalekan Yusuf, and Muyideen Shoyombo — joined the case.
In a twist on Tuesday, the court found Egbegbe guilty of just one of the 44 count charges against him and set him free.
Justice Oguntoyinbo said that 43 of the 44 count charges crumbled because of lack of witnesses to substantiate their claims.
Furthermore, the judge held that the prosecuting team failed in the responsibility to provide 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; ordering the police to return money recovered from Egbegbe as evidence to him.
