Reports of Hushpuppi’s sentencing is false – US DoJ tells Neusroom

The United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) for Central District of California has told Neusroom that viral reports claiming Nigeria’s celebrity hacker Ramon Abass Olorunwa ‘Hushpuppi’ has been sentenced to 11 years in prison is false

There are multiple reports on the internet on Friday, November 4, 2022, with some Nigerian national media, news blogs and social media influencers claiming Hushpuppi, who’s presently in detention in Los Angeles, has been sentenced to 11 years in jail and he is to serve nine years in jail after spending two years in detention since his arrest in June 2020.

The report did not quote any official source.

The report published on the website of one of Nigeria’s leading national newspapers and reviewed by Neusroom claimed “he (Hushpuppi) was finally sentenced to 11 years in jail by the United States Central District Court in California. But Hushpuppi Abbas will spend nine years in prison because he had spent two years already in the US following his arrest in Dubai in 2020.”

Thom Mrozek, the spokesperson of the USAO for Central District of California, in an email sent to Neusroom on Friday, November 4, 2022, said the report is not true.

“Not true. Sentencing hearing won’t happen for three more days,” Mrozek wrote in the email.

Hushpuppi has spent more than two years in detention in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and Los Angeles in the US as he awaits his sentencing which has been shifted multiple times since he pleaded guilty to his alleged crimes.

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On Tuesday, November 1, 2022, the Department of Justice told Neusroom that his sentencing had been shifted from November 3 to November 7.

Neusroom also exclusively reported on Wednesday that Hushpuppi’s Instagram account with over 2 million followers where he displayed his illicit wealth and luxury lifestyle has been deactivated.

When Neusroom searched for the Instagram account on Wednesday, November 2, 2022, we observed the account is no longer available, suggesting that it may have been deactivated.