US Court Dismisses Fraud Case Against Woodberry Without Prejudice

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The 29-year-old Ponle popularly known as Woodberry, facing charges bordering on wire fraud conspiracy at a United States District Court in Illinois has been dismissed by the US Court without prejudice.

Mr Ponle was arrested alongside Ramon Abbas (Hushpuppi) in the United Arab Emirate on June 10 for multiple fraud charges after a raid by the Dubai Police.

He was charged with $15.2 million wire transfer fraud against an unnamed Chicago company. The prosecutor also claimed that companies based in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New York and California were victims of the fraud.

Diutocoinnews previously reported that he was involved in a fraudulent Bitcoin transaction of which he was charged. The affidavit read: “Preliminary blockchain analysis indicates that Ponle received at least 1,494.71506296 bitcoin related to these BEC schemes, valued at approximately $6,599,499.98.”

On Monday, United States government filed a motion through its attorney, John R. Lausch, requesting that the case against Mr Ponle, be dismissed without prejudice.

“Understand that a judge does must abide by motions with no options. Ruling on motions is a “ministerial act.” It is a requirement of the judge’s job.”

“Counsel for the government has spoken with counsel for the defendant and defendant’s counsel has no objection to this motion. Respectfully submitted,” Mr Lausch stated.

A court order issued by Judge Robert W. Gettleman on Tuesday, notes that the government’s motion to dismiss complaint without prejudice was granted.

“Without objection the complaint against defendant Ponle is dismissed without prejudice. Motion presentment hearing set for 7/23/2020 is stricken,” Mr Gettleman ruled.

Any case dismissed with prejudice can not be taken back to court, it is done once and for all. But then a case dismissed without prejudice can be brought back to court within a certain period of time as the case is dismissed temporary.

Possible reasons for the temporal dismissal might be due to insufficient evidence for prosecution, though he is yet to be released from detention at the time of this report.