A U.S. court has ruled that Abidemi Rufai, the now suspended senior special assistant to Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun, who was arrested for a $650 million unemployment fraud, is to remain in prison custody until his trial.

The federal judge of the District Court in Takoma, Benjamin Settle, gave the verdict on Friday after federal prosecutors concluded that the former Ogun State government official represented a flight risk, saying the “defendant poses a serious risk of nonappearance.”

Following the new ruling, Mr Settle ordered that federal marshals transport Mr Rufai, who is in detention in New York, to Washington for trial slated for August 31.

The new ruling reverses the initial order in May by a federal judge in New York that granted him a pretrial release on a $300,000 “surety” bond which was however delayed to allow federal prosecutors make their appeal of the proposed release.

The police in the U.S. on May 14, arrested 42-year-old Rufai, at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport while trying to fly to Nigeria via Amsterdam.

Federal authorities explained that Mr Rufai is facing charges for defrauding the Washington state Employment Security Department of over $350,000 in jobless benefits in 2020 and also attempting to defraud the Internal Revenue Service of nearly $1.6 million.

Mr Rufai is alleged to have employed a feature of Gmail, Google’s free email service, using a single email account to file multiple unemployment claims in Washington. He was also alleged to have used stolen social security numbers and other personal data.

One of Mr Rufai’s lawyers, Michael C. Barrows, in defence of his client “denies any involvement in these transactions,” while his other lawyer, Lance Hester prayed the court to reconsider Friday’s ruling if there were changes in his circumstances.

Mr Rufai’s alleged crime is described by federal authorities as the first “significant” arrest related to Washington’s fraud and one of many bogus unemployment claims filed by criminals in about 12 states in the U.S.

Officials also stated that Mr Rufai’s technique was similar to that used by compatriot, 38-year-old IT engineer at a Nigerian oil company, Chukwuemeka Onyegbula, who on his part, stole roughly $290,000 in unemployment insurance benefits from Washington and other states.

According to an indictment returned on Wednesday in federal district court in Tacoma, Mr Onyegbula was also alleged to have stolen around $50,000 in federal disaster loans.

While no links have yet been established between the crimes committed by the pair, no attorney has been listed yet to comment on Mr Onyegbula’s behalf.

Washington has been grappling with fraudulent claims for pandemic-related benefits of which it has paid over $647 million in similar fraudulent claims. Officials however, say that it has recovered $370 million out of the sum.