Joseph Oloyede, a Nigerian monarch has been sentenced to 56 months in a United States prison for defrauding the US government of $4.2 million in COVID-19 relief funds.
On Tuesday, trial judge Christopher Boyko handed down the sentence after Oloyede pleaded guilty.
The court also ordered him to “serve three years of supervised release after imprisonment and pay $4,408,543 in restitution.”
According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio, Oloyede will additionally forfeit his Medina residence and $96,006 earlier seized by investigators.
In April 2024, Oloyede was arrested alongside Edward Oluwasanmi, a Nigerian pastor, in connection with the COVID-19 fraud.
The two were jointly charged on 13 counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud, money laundering, and engaging in monetary transactions involving criminally derived property.
Court documents revealed that between April 2020 and February 28, 2022, Oloyede and Oluwasanmi submitted fraudulent Paycheck Protection Programme (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) applications for companies they controlled.
They also allegedly filed falsified tax and wage documents to back up the applications.
“During the investigation, agents found that Oloyede operated as a tax preparer and owned five businesses and one nonprofit. His co-defendant—and tax client—Oluwasanmi, owned an additional three business entities; all were incorporated in Ohio,” the US government said.
“Both defendants used their businesses to submit loan applications using false information. They obtained approximately $1.2 million in SBA funds for Oluwasanmi’s entities and $1.7 million for Oloyede’s entities.”
Both men later pleaded guilty to some of the charges under plea bargain agreements.
In July, Oluwasanmi was sentenced to 27 months in prison for his role in the fraud.