A U.S. based Nigerian lawyer, Paulinus Okoronkwo, is facing a charge of receiving a $2.1 million bribe while serving as general manager of the upstream division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited.

The U.S. Department of Justice, in a statement on August 28 said, Mr Okoronkwo, 58, popularly known as “Pollie,” “was found guilty of three counts of transactional money laundering, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.”

With his sentencing by United States District Judge John F. Walter scheduled for December 1, Mr Okoronkwo, a dual citizen of the United States and Nigeria, risks spending about four decades in jail if he was found guilty of the offence.

The DoJ said, “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. Okoronkwo is free on a $50,000 bond.”

Citing evidence presented at a four-day trial of Mr Okoronkwo, the DoJ said, “In October 2015, Addax Petroleum, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of Sinopec, a Chinese state-owned petroleum, gas, and petrochemical conglomerate, wired a payment of $2,105,263 to an Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account (IOLTA) in the name of Okoronkwo’s Los Angeles law firm, purportedly for his work as a consultant who negotiated and completed a settlement agreement with the NNPC with respect to Addax’s drilling rights in Nigeria. According to the indictment, Addax calculated that it stood to lose billions of dollars if its favourable drilling rights were not secured.’’

It added, “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.”

The DoJ said Addax concealed the bribe paid to Mr Okoronkwo as payment for legal services, while accusing Mr Okoronkwo of buying a house at Valencia from the bribe.

“To conceal the illegal bribery scheme, Addax falsely characterized 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,” the DoJ said.

It noted, “In November 2017, Okoronkwo used $983,200 of the illegally obtained funds to make a down payment on a house in Valencia.”

Accusing Mr Okoronkwo of gaming the system, the DoJ said, “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.”