Convicted West African con artist asks for early release due to COVID- 19 risk

A convicted swindler who has repeatedly run afoul of federal authorities for deceit is asking to be released from an Ohio lockup because of the risk of COVID- 19.

Nathaneal Nyamekye, a native of Ghana living in Chippewa, was sentenced to 57 months in May for his role in a “business email compromise” scheme in which he and his West African cohorts ripped off the parties in real estate deals in two states.

He’s been held at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, where he says he is in a cell with another inmate with no social distancing. He says he is at risk of getting COVID- 19 and wants out.

“There are many active cases of COVID- 19 at NEOCC and people have died in that prison from this disease,” his lawyer, Chris Rand Eyster, said in a court motion. “Mr. Nyamekye has an underlying medical issue — asthma — and he previously suffered pneumonia with a collapsed lung that make him vulnerable to the virus.”

Mr. Eyster said his client is not a danger to anyone.

Nyamekye, who is due to get out on Jan. 30, 2022, wants to be released to live with his girlfriend and mother of his child and work as an auto mechanic.

The owner of an auto shop in Aliquippa, he was one of four West Africans prosecuted in federal court for preying on property owners. He acted in concert with the others by using bogus emails to infiltrate real estate deals and fool a settlement company and several lawyers into wiring money to accounts they controlled.

U. S. District Judge Reggie Walton convicted him after a bench trial on two counts related to the theft of $ 411,000 from the sale of a home in Maryland and $ 212,000 from the sale of a home in Massachusetts.

Nyamekye’s co- conspirators have all been punished. Ismail Shitu, a Ghana native living Brookline, received probation and home detention, as did Adnan Ibrahim, another Ghana native who had been living in Duquesne before moving to Atlanta.

A Nigerian member of the conspiracy, Akintayo Bolorunduro, of Atlanta, is serving 63 months in prison.