LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles-area lawyer has been convicted of receiving a $2.1 million bribe while serving as an officer of Nigeria’s state-owned oil company, a scheme connected to securing favorable drilling rights for a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned petroleum corporation.
Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, 58, a.k.a. “Pollie,” of Valencia, who practiced immigration, family, and personal injury law out of an office in Koreatown, was found guilty of three counts of transactional money laundering, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.
According to evidence presented at a four-day trial, Okoronkwo, a dual citizen of the United States and Nigeria, had served as general manager of the upstream division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), the state-owned company responsible for developing Nigeria’s fossil fuel and natural gas reserves through partnerships with foreign oil companies. In that role, he was considered a public official and owed a fiduciary duty to the Nigerian government…