Two KNUST students in Police custody for “sextortion”

A Takoradi Circuit Court has remanded two students from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) into Police custody for agreeing and acting together with a common purpose to commit crime, to wit ‘ sextortion’.

They are Jerome Enyam, aged 19, a resident of Fijai, and Ebenezer Adam, aged 19, also a resident of Kojokrom and second-year students at KNUST, Kumasi.

Their action was in contravention of 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 yearmates of the victim; Rhyndolf Owusu

Hammond, aged 20, formerly a student of KUNST, and the son of the complainant, Mr. 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 the 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 a sexually explicit image of one

Rhyndolf Owusu Hammond and his girlfriend, harassed, threatened, intimidated, and coerced him to the extent of extorting a cash amount of GH¢1,800.00 from him or releasing it to the social media spectrum.

The Prosecuted 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 concerning him and his girlfriend, thereby, demanding an amount of GH¢2,500 from the victim.