Man who claimed to be Ghanaian Prince jailed 20 years in USA for over $800,000 fraud

According to CNN, Daryl Robert Harrison, who went by Prince Daryl R. Attipoe and Prophet Daryl R. Attipoe scammed no fewer than 14 people and made a lot of money to their detriment.

Although he was convicted in September last year of mail and wire fraud, conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, and witness tampering, he has now been sentenced.

Prosecutors said Harrison stole money from people and made them believe that he was a prince from Ghana and could help them invest in African mining and trucking companies.

The now-convict is reported to have carried out the fraudulent act for several years and most of his victims were congregants of the Power House of Prayer Ministries, a church he and his stepfather claimed to be pastors.

Prosecutors told a District Court presided over by Judge Michael J. Newman that Harrison and his stepfather used the investment money taken from their victims for personal expenses, including renting a house in Colorado and purchasing luxury cars, the CNN report said.

In court documents, prosecutors described Harrison as an “extremely self-centred, self-possessed sociopath who has no respect for societal rules or norms, and further lacks any empathy or sympathy for his victims”.

The documents added that he “intimidated and threatened his victims to establish and maintain control over them” and that “each of the Defendant’s fraud crimes were committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated fashion.”

Before his sentencing, Harrison begged for leniency, with letters from parishioners and family members asking the court to temper justice with mercy. His lawyer prayed for a mitigated punishment, saying his client’s wife, who is taking care of their six children, is battling stage IV cancer.

However, Judge Michael J. Newman handed down a 20-year jail term to him, the maximum the law permits. The sentence exceeds the 14-year sentence prosecutors had asked for.

Meanwhile, Robert Shelly Harrison, Jr., the convict’s stepfather who was his accomplice in the crime reportedly pleaded guilty to one felony charge in December and is expected to be sentenced this month.