US Appeals Court Dismisses Appeals By Emeka Ugwuonye, A Maryland Lawyer Accused Of Stealing $1.55 Million From The Nigerian Embassy

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has dismissed an appeal filed by a Maryland-based Nigerian-born lawyer, Emeka Ugwuonye, seeking to overturn a high court ruling that had ordered him to refund $1.55 million he improperly pocketed. The diverted funds belonged to the Nigerian Embassy to the US.

In its verdict, handed down on April 18, 2014 the clerk of the appellate court disclosed that Mr. Ugwuonye’s appeal was dismissed for lack of prosecution. The ruling now clears the way for the controversial lawyer’s possible disbarment by the Maryland Attorney Grievances Commission billed to try the lawyer for ethical misconduct.

Mr. Ugwuonye had represented the Nigerian embassy in Washington, DC in a series of real estate transactions to sell several properties owned by the Nigerian government in the US. But when the US treasury sent the embassy tax refunds from the transactions worth $1.55 million, Mr. Ugwuonye hijacked the funds instead of forwarding it to the embassy after deducting his legal fees. 

The US government had initially assessed taxes on the real estate deals because Mr. Ugwuonye had failed to file for the embassy’s status as a sovereign body that should not pay taxes in the US. Thereafter, Mr. Ugwuonye convinced the embassy to retain his legal services, on the basis of a commission, to help recover the taxes that should not have been paid in the first place if he had done his work diligently.

In arguments submitted in court, lawyers to the Nigerian embassy stated that, on receiving the tax refund of $1.55 million, Mr. Ugwuonye began spending it even as he told the embassy that the check had not yet cleared and that he would remit the funds to his erstwhile clients.

SaharaReporters had revealed the embassy real estate fraud in a series of exclusive reports in 2009. 

Soon after our report, Mr. Ugwuonye launched a series of libel lawsuits aimed at silencing the website owners and several Nigerians who had commented on the fraud on the Internet. 

Meanwhile, the Nigerian embassy in DC filed a lawsuit at a US District Court asking that Mr. Ugwuonye be ordered to refund the $1.55 million he had stolen as well as accrued interests. In May 2013, US District Judge Barbara Rothstein agreed with the embassy’s lawyers and ordered Mr. Ugwuonye to refund the stolen funds with interests.

Mr. Ugwuonye, who had filed to meet several filing deadlines set by Judge Rothstein, launched a series of appeals against her judgment. He also took to the Internet where he orchestrated a social media propaganda designed to mislead people about the substance of the case against him. He started a Facebook group where he claimed that he was fighting against human rights abuses in Nigeria.

In typical fashion, he abandoned the appeals he filed, failing to submit necessary paperwork that would have enabled the case to proceed diligently. One legal analyst suggested that Mr. Ugwuonye’s appeals were apparently calculated to stall the proceedings of the Maryland Grievances Commission. “As long as the case had the status of an active appeal, Emeka [Ugwuonye] could compel the commission to temporarily suspend its investigation of his conduct in the matter of the embassy’s tax refund. Now that the appeal has collapsed, nothing stands in the way of the commission,” said the source.

Another strategy employed by Mr. Ugwuonye was to file several frivolous papers in which he claimed that he was unable to provide satisfactory and timely responses to the US court because he was tied up with defending himself in criminal cases filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) both for the theft of the embassy funds and another theft relating to $94,000 he reportedly stole from Sola Adeoye, another Nigerian client of his.

The Court of Appeals had issued a final order to Mr. Ugwuonye to show cause why the case should not be thrown out for non-prosecution due on April 7th. When he failed to respond, the clerk of the appeals court signed an order on April 18, 2014, formally dismissing his appeal and closing his appeal.

The latest appellate defeat for Mr. Ugwuonye marks the fifth consecutive appeal he has lost on the issue of the embassy’s funds he stole. His string of losses include two appeals he instituted against a judicial verdict that determined that SaharaReporters had not libeled him.

SaharaReporters learned that, with the latest loss of Mr. Ugwuonye’s appeal, lawyers for the Nigerian embassy might move quickly to put a lien on Mr. Ugwuonye’s assets and get his license to practice law in the US taken away.