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OAN Staff Abril Elfi
3:31 PM – Saturday, September 7, 2024
Two Nigerian brothers have been sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison for following their guilty plea to sexually extorting over 100 young men and teenage boys, including a high school student from Michigan who committed suicide.
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Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, were sentenced on Thursday after they each pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to exploit teenage boys sexually and were later extradited from Nigeria to the United States.
The brothers had been accused of running an international sextortion ring in which they posed as young women and targeted over 100 victims, including at least 11 minors.
The Ogoshis allegedly ran their sextortion scheme while residing in Nigeria, where they purchased hacked social media profiles and used them to entice victims with fictitious profiles, according to the prosecution.
Jordan DeMay, a 17-year-old high school student, took his own life in March of 2022 as a result of the scheme.
According to court records, DeMay died from a self-inflicted gunshot at his home in Marquette, Michigan, after he was blackmailed by Samuel Ogoshi.
“To criminals who commit these schemes: you are not immune from justice. We will track you down and hold you accountable, even if we have to go halfway around the world to do so,” U.S. Attorney Mark Totten said in a statement. “And to parents, teenagers, and everyone who uses a cell phone: please, please be careful. These devices can connect you to criminal networks around the world. Don’t assume people are who they say they are. Don’t share compromising images. And if you’re a victim, please reach out.”
The two men conspired to use a hacked Instagram account to pretend to be women and start a conversation with DeMay. Ultimately, they blackmailed DeMay into sending money and threatened to kill him until he committed suicide in March 2022.
On the very evening that the Ogoshis initiated contact with Jodan on Instagram, the teenager uploaded a graphic picture of himself to the account thinking it was for a female.
Prosecutors claimed that if Jordan did not send the money right away, Samuel Ogoshi threatened to reveal it and make it go “viral” online. Jordan sent the money as requested, but Ogoshi continued to demand more and more from the 17-year-old, and the crime only got worse from then on.
The conversation continued for hours on end on a single evening until Jordan told Ogoshi he was going to commit suicide.
“Good,” he wrote. “Do that fast. Or I’ll make you do it. I swear to God.”
Between October 2021 and March 2023, the FBI received more than 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion involving at least 12,600 victims.
According to John DeMay, U.S. officials had to remove the death penalty from consideration as part of negotiations between the governments of the United States and Nigeria regarding the extradition of the Ogoshi brothers. As part of their plea deals, the brothers’ charges were also lowered.
“So, now, when we go into the sentencing guidelines, which is a 15- to a 30-year sentence, they’ve already given them a ton of reprieve,” DeMay explained. “They have already given them a ton of concessions. So, that’s where I have a little bit of an issue with only 17 years, because they already knocked off 5 to 10 years on the lesser charge they already pulled off. They already pulled other charges off the top in the very beginning.”
If you have been sexually assaulted and live in New York, you can call 1-800-942-6906 for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the state, you can dial the 24/7 National Sexual Assault hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
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