Two brothers from Nigeria on Thursday were sentenced to 17 years, six months in federal prison after pleading guilty to sexually extorting teenage boys and young men across the US, including a 17-year-old from Michigan who took his own life.
A federal judge sentenced Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, after hearing emotional testimony from the parents and stepmother of Jordan DeMay, who was 17 when he killed himself at his family’s home in Marquette, Michigan.
The Ogoshis, both from Lagos, Nigeria, had previously been extradited from Nigeria to stand trial. The brothers each pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to sexually exploit teenage boys.
They were accused of running an international sextortion ring in which they posed as a woman, a scheme which resulted in DeMay’s March 2022 suicide. The siblings were accused of inducing DeMay to send a naked picture of himself and then extorting him. Federal prosecutors said their sextortion schemes targeted more than 100 victims, including DeMay.
“Today’s sentencing of Samuel and Samson Ogoshi sends a thundering message,” US Attorney Mark Totten said in a statement. “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.”
Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photographs online and then threatening to make the images public unless the victim pays money or engages in sexual favors.
US District Judge Robert Jonker, who also sentenced the Ogoshis to five years of supervision following their release, said he would decide what restitution they must make when he receives additional information.
Before sentencing the brothers, Jonker said the case called for long sentences. He said both of the defendants had shown a “callous disregard for life,” while noting that the siblings had continued their sextortion scams even after learning that DeMay had killed himself.
“The continuation of the overall scheme even after there was certain knowledge that one individual, the individual in this case, took his own life points to the need for a high sentence,” the judge said .
DeMay’s mother, Jennifer Buta, told the court during Samuel Ogoshi’s sentencing that her son’s death had left her “shattered to the core, infuriated and trapped in grief.”
She said the last text her son sent her was: “Mother I love you” — a text she awoke to and thought was endearing until she learned that he had killed himself.
“What I thought was an endearing message from Jordan was his goodbye and his reassurance of his love for me,” Buta said. “I would never have imagined that while I was asleep both of the defendants hid behind their screens and tortured Jordan for hours while he was alone.”
DeMay’s stepmother, Jessica DeMay, said during her tearful testimony that she and Jordan’s other relatives would “never again experience pure joy” because every happy moment would be tainted by “a small cloud of sadness around it” that comes from Jordan DeMay’s death.
The teenager’s father, John DeMay, said he is haunted by the image of “my son laying on his bed dead with a gunshot wound to his head.”
“Jordan was an amazing young man. He was resilient, he was smart, he was educated, he was an athlete. He was my only son, and you got to talk to him for the last time in his life. That’s horrifying to me,” he said.
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