Two KNUST students in police custody for ‘sextortion’

A Takoradi Circuit Court has remanded into police custody two students from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) for agreeing and acting together with a common purpose to commit crime, to wit ‘sextortion’. They are Jerome Enyam, aged 19, resident of Fijai, and Ebenezer Adam, aged 19, also resident of Kojokrom and second year students at KNUST, Kumasi. Their action was in contravention with the Criminal Offenses Act and the Cyber Security Act. Prosecuting, D/SGT Robert Mensah told the Court presided over by Her Ladyship Harriet Charway that the accused persons, were friends and year-mate of the victim; Rhyndolf Owusu Hammond, aged 20, formerly a student of KUNST, and the son of the complainant, Stephen Owusu Hammond. The prosecutor narrated that, during the first quarter of last year 2023, the complainant’s son video-graphed a sexual intimacy with his girlfriend and in turn uploaded same on his laptop. His close friend, and a key witness in this case, Ekow Wilson, driven by ecstasy and awe, transferred the video onto his personal phone. Later, without the knowledge and consent of witness Wilson, one of the accused airdropped the said video onto his phone and further shared the video with his accomplices. Afterwards, the two, in Takoradi in the Western Circuit and within the jurisdiction of this Court, being in possession of sexually explicit image of one Rhyndolf Owusu Hammond and his girlfriend, harassed, threatened, intimidated, and coerced him to the extent of extorting cash amount of GHC1,800.00 from him or release it to the social media spectrum. The prosecutor said on November 7, 2023, they, jointly and by disguise, sent a text message to the victim through an anonymous Vodafone contact number 0203224110 and informed him that they had possessed an amorous video of him and his girlfriend, thereby, demanding an amount of GHC2,500 from the victim. At that point, the victim informed his father, now the complainant, who in turn filed the case with the Police Intelligence Directorate Takoradi, leading to the arrest of the accused persons. A cell phone each containing the amorous video was retrieved from them by the Police and after investigation, the accused persons were charged with the requisite offences.