US court convicts nurse over Okonjo-Iweala’s husband

By Our Correspondent

Published: Sunday, 4 Nov 2007

A 28-year-old nurse, Queen Nwoye who had an affair with Ikemba Iweala, the neurosurgeon husband of Nigeria‘s former Minister of Finance Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has been found guilty of extortion in the United States.

She was found guilty of helping to extort $185,000 from the husband to keep their relationship a secret.

Nwoye is to be sentenced on January 18 by U.S. District Judge, Ellen Segal Huvelle.

A federal jury on Friday found Nwoye guilty of conspiracy to commit extortion. She faces up to three years and one month in prison under sentencing guidelines, Assistant U.S. Attorney Frederick Yette said.

Before she was taken into custody, Nwoye, the mother of a five-year-old and a seven-year-old, put her head on a courtroom table and sobbed as her husband looked on from the gallery.

Ikemba, 59, is a neurosurgeon at Providence Hospital in the District of Columbia.

His wife, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is one of the Managing Directors of World Bank.

Nwoye, a fellow Nigerian and Iweala‘s former lover, was accused of helping her new boyfriend extort money from Iweala after her affair with the doctor ended.

Prosecutors said Nwoye arranged an initial conversation between the new boyfriend, Adriane Osuagwu, and Iweala and picked up the payments from Iweala.

At one point, Nwoye arranged to meet Iweala for sex, and when they started to undress in her car, Osuagwu jumped out of the bushes and began snapping pictures, prosecutors said.

But Nwoye‘s lawyer, John Iweanoge II, told jurors that his client had no intent to commit extortion and did not benefit from the alleged scheme.

Rather, he said, she was following orders from an abusive boyfriend and had just as much reason to want to keep their affair a secret as Iweala did because she was married, too.

Yette argued that Iweala had more to lose, particularly given his wife‘s position in the Nigerian government at the time.

”That was the kind of secret that could change a man‘s life – change careers, his and his wife‘s,” Yette said during closing arguments.

The jury deliberated for less than three hours on Friday.

Afterward, Iweanoge said he was concerned that jurors might have rushed to reach a verdict because they wanted to be done with the case before the weekend.

Reports said the neurosurgeon at Providence Hospital confessed that he started an affair with the nurse who hailed from his native country.

The nurse began demanding that the doctor turn over large sums of money to keep the affair a secret from Ngozi, his spouse and prominent World Bank official and Brookings Institution scholar.

They said they had pictures of him and the nurse during rendezvous in a car.

The doctor paid up, but his wife soon found out, according to court papers filed in the case at the federal courthouse in Washington, where the nurse is on trial on extortion charges.

The embarrassed doctor told the jury that his action had affected his name and that of his family as well as seriously wounded his marriage.

“Things will never be the same,” a frail-looking, gray-bearded Ikemba Iweala said with a sigh as he testified this week.

“I am still married. . . . But I feel very angry with myself. And, I have lost a lot of money.”

He allegedly told prosecutors that he had hoped to conceal the affair and protect his community standing in the United States and in Nigeria. Other members of his family live in the cozy suburb of Potomac.

His wife, a Harvard-trained economist, is a veteran employee of the World Bank and mentioned as a possible successor to Paul D. Wolfowitz, who resigned as president in June. This month, the new World Bank president, Robert B. Zoellick, made her one of his top deputies.

Uzodinma Iweala, the couple’s son, who graduated from St. Albans and Harvard, is the author of the critically acclaimed “Beasts of No Nation,” his first novel. The fictionalized story of an African child warrior was released last year.

The nurse, Nwoye, on trial before U.S. District Judge, Ellen S. Huvelle, insisted that she, too, was a victim.

Testifying in her own defense, she admitted that she helped to collect the money and helped her boyfriend, Adriane Osuagwu, pretend to be her cousin so that he could conceal his identity.

But with a sullen face and insistent cries, Nwoye testified that she was powerless to resist the orders of Osuagwu, whom she described as a physically abusive, controlling man and as the architect of the plot.

“This is a sad case,” Nwoye’s attorney, John Iweanoge, told jurors in opening statements earlier in the week. “You’re going to hear evidence of adultery, no question. You’re going to hear about money going into Ms. Nwoye’s accounts.”

But, the defense attorney added that, “Ms. Nwoye was a victim too, She made the mistake of her life falling in love in the middle of a divorce with the wrong man.”

According to court papers, the story began in early 2002 when Nwoye, then a nurse in training, noticed the doctor’s name in a hospital directory.

She said she recognized Iweala as a fellow Nigerian and introduced herself. They became friends, and, in September 2002, they became lovers. The sexual relationship ended in August 2003, they both say, but their friendship continued.

Nearly three years later, in February 2006, Iweala testified, he received a surprise call from Nwoye.

She told Iweala that he must call her cousin “Ufondu” in Georgia. It was then that “Ufondu,” a nickname that the nurse’s new boyfriend was using, demanded that the doctor pay $20,000 or he would tell Iweala’s wife about the affair.

Within a week, the man demanded another $20,000, prosecutors said.

On March 10, 2006, Nwoye called Iweala to suggest that they meet because “she said she had not had sex in a while,” according to court papers.

While the two were having sex in the parking lot in Nwoye’s car, someone approached and began taking photographs. That night, “Ufondu” called Iweala again to demand an additional $100,000, the court papers said.

Iweala said the demands by “Ufondu” continued. Authorities say Nwoye picked up some of the checks and cash and deposited the money into her and her boyfriend’s bank accounts. “There is a lot I could have done,” she told the jury. “I really wanted something to be done, but I couldn’t help myself.”

Iweala brought the case to the FBI’s attention and agreed to help authorities in the prosecution. “He felt compelled to bring the culprits to justice in order to prevent others from falling prey to a similar scheme,” said Iweala’s attorney, Vincent Cohen.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Angela Hart-Edwards told jurors that the case is not about getting the money back. “That’s gone,” she said.

One unanswered question for the jury so far concerns the boyfriend, Osuagwu. If he orchestrated this extortion plot along with the nurse, as the government alleges, where is he, and why hasn’t he been charged, too?

“Beats me,” Nwoye’s attorney said. “I’m surprised he’s not here now, as a defendant.”

Prosecutors declined to comment on why Osuagwu has not been charged.