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Posted March 9, 2006
Lies, Theft, Fraud In The Name Of Liberia?
It was just completely stunning to hear that a Liberia native living
in the United States was sentenced to nearly 2 1/2 years in federal prison
in the US on conviction of embezzling half-million dollars while serving as
town manager and attorney of the small North Carolina city of Zebulon.
Jonathan Kofa pleaded guilty to several counts of embezzlement and fraud,
and was able to perhaps have his sentence reduced by US District Court judge
Louise Flanagan last January. Yet, he will be behind bars for a long time
for taking $199, 000 from a couple refinancing their home, $180, 129 from
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, $73,429 from a mobile home dealer in
Zebulon and $12,000 from the town of Rolesville. He was accused of writing
bad checks to a manufactured home dealer, taking nearly $200,000 from three
foreclosures he was supposed to be holding in trust for the US Department of
Agriculture, and both cases involved taking money from a trust account at
his private practice.
One Betty Strickland said as the owner of Triangle East Homes, she worked
several real estate closings with Koffa. After the last one, Strickland said
the check Koffa gave her was no good. "I don't think it was done
intentionally. I think there is some underlying reason that caused him to do
this," she said. Well, Betty was wrong.
There were three troubling issues arising out of Koffa's case that must not
go unnoticed. 1. He was supposed to be helping to build roads and bridges in
his native Liberia, 2. He spent enormous amount of time supporting his
"friend and brother" Charles Brunskine who contested and lost in
last year's presidential and general elections in Liberia, 3. An
overwhelming number of people and Koffa's own attorney, have maintained he did not
intentionally commit the crimes and therefore deserves leniency from the
judge. Even the heads of charities and other organizations Koffa worked
with, pleaded with the judge to have some mercy.
But, at the other end of the spectrum, one will wonder why a well educated
lawyer, who worked and lived for many years in the United States, in
simple terms, take money from people, including a city government and not
deliver? If his sympathizers believe he had good intentions but things just
went bad, what went wrong? How did it all change from good intentions to
huge criminal charges, a court trial, guilty plea and conviction?
Also, where are the roads and bridges he was helping to build in Liberia?
Where exactly in Liberia can we proudly walk those roads and cross the new
bridges. We must remember that after Jonathan Koffa collected huge sum of
money from his clients in Zebulon, he took a trip to Liberia in the middle
of election season. The only "project" we heard of was that he was legal
advisor to presidential candidate Charles Brumskine. News have also
circulated that he pumped a good bit of money into the Brumskine campaign.
In fact, Koffa told people in North Carolina that he was going to Liberia to
render some assistance to the transitional government. There is this silly
excuse that he was doing everything with his personal funds; and when he
went low on funds, he became tempted to turn to people's money he had in
trust accounts. This is just absolutely crazy and pure nonsense.
This is what we think happened:
Jonathan Koffa, the son of a former Liberian ambassador
who
traveled to the United States as a college student in 1983 and rose through
the ranks of Zebulon's government while he earned a law degree and became a
U.S. citizen, was gambling big, and he lost. He was gambling with the wave
of political and democratic change that was emerging in Liberia, a nation
that has been at war with itself for more than 15 years. If Charles
Brumskine had won the election in Liberia, Mr. Koffa will have been a
"shareholder", and thus, would not have gone broke. He would have been able
to payoff his victims, including the city of Rolesville and still have more
money pocketed because who knows what position Brumskine would have rewarded
him with.
But see, it is always said right that most
gamblers just don't know when to run, when to hold on and when to continue
playing. They don't know when to pull out of the game. This is the situation
Jonathan Koffa has landed into.
So let this be heads up to those who might want
to support political causes in the future. It is a risky game to receive
money from people for one purpose and use it on another, but yet, uncertain
cause as in the case of young Jonathan Koffa who will not only spend more
than 24 months in prison, but also compensate his victims and serve three
years of probation.
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