A Los Angeles-area lawyer was sentenced today to seven years and three months in federal prison for receiving a $2.1 million bribe while serving as an officer of Nigeria’s state-owned oil company in connection with negotiating favorable drilling rights for a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned oil company.
U.S. District Judge John F. Walter sentenced Paulinus Okoronkwo, 58, also known as “Pollie,” to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service and to forfeit over $1 million, the net proceeds of the sale of a Valencia home involved in the laundering of the bribe money.
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Following a four-day trial in downtown Los Angeles in August 2025, a jury convicted Okoronkwo of three counts of transactional money laundering, one point of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.
Okoronkwo, a dual citizen of the US and Nigeria, practiced immigration, family, and personal injury litigation from his Koreatown office. He was also the general manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.’s upstream branch.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is a state-owned company that exploited the country’s fossil fuel and natural gas reserves, including through collaborations with global oil firms. According to the US Attorney’s Office, Okoronkwo owed a fiduciary duty to the Nigerian government and served as a public servant in this capacity.
To conceal the scheme, Addax Petroleum, a Swiss subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned petroleum, gas, and petrochemical conglomerate, misrepresented the $2.1 million payment as a payment for legal services, lied to an auditor about it, and fired executives who questioned its legitimacy, according to prosecutors.
According to the US Attorney’s Office, Okoronkwo received the bribe payment in his law firm’s trust account in order to give the impression that it was client monies.
After accepting the bribe, Okoronkwo transferred monies to IPO Capital LLC. Okoronkwo then used the bribery monies to pay for family bills, a car, and a home. In November 2017, Okoronkwo used $983,200 of the unlawfully obtained monies to make down payments on a Valencia home, according to authorities.
Okoronkwo also failed to report the $2.1 million bribe payment on his 2015 federal income tax return, prosecutors said. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he also obstructed justice in June 2022 by lying to federal investigators and telling them that he did not utilize any of the $2.1 million to buy a house and that the money reflected client cash rather than profits for his law firm.
