Crime & Punishment of Sunday, 27 July 2014

Source: GNA

Woman jailed six months for posing as nurse

A circuit court in Accra has sentenced an unemployed woman, Evelyn Adoma, to six months imprisonment for falsification and impersonation.

Adoma is said to have presented documents to the American Embassy in Accra declaring that she was a nurse working with the 37 Military Hospital, but when her occupation was verified it turned out to be false.

Adoma, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, was deported to Ghana from the United States and rearrested by the police on arrival in Ghana.

The court, presided over by Ms Ellen V. Amoah, found Adoma guilty on all the charges and sentenced her to three months imprisonment on the charge of false declaration. She was also to serve six months on the charge of impersonation. Her sentences were to run concurrently.

Prosecuting, Chief Inspector Patience Agyapong told the court that on April 6, 2012, the American Embassy received information from the United States of America that Adoma had fraudulently acquired an American visa into that country; hence she was being deported to Ghana.

The US Embassy officials alerted the police in Ghana who arrested Adoma on her arrival. During interrogation, prosecution said it came to light that Adoma had presented herself as a military nurse working with the Ghana Armed Forces but was stationed at the 37 Military Hospital adding that she also lived at 12 Neghell Barracks , Air Force Base Headquarters at Burma Camp.

Adoma said in her caution statement that she was not a military nurse working at the 37 Military Hospital and that it was one Kwaku Boakye, an uncle, who assisted her to pose as an Army Officer by making false representation on line in order to facilitate her visa acquisition. Prosecution said Adoma, however, failed to lead the police to arrest the said uncle.