The sordid tale of a married neurosurgeon who made $185,000 in payoffs to keep his affair with a 20-something nurse a secret landed in jurors’ laps Friday as the nurse’s four-day trial on extortion conspiracy charges wrapped up.
Ikemba Iweala, 59, is a neurosurgeon at Providence Hospital in the District of Columbia. His wife, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is a high-ranking World Bank official and former finance minister of Nigeria.
Iweala’s former lover, 28-year-old Queen Nwoye, is accused of helping her new boyfriend extort money from Iweala after her affair with the doctor had ended.
Prosecutors say Nwoye arranged an initial conversation between the boyfriend, Adriane Osuagwu, and Iweala and picked up the payments from Iweala. At one point, she set up a rendezvous with Iweala for sex, and when they started to undress in her car, Osuagwu jumped out of the bushes and began snapping pictures, prosecutors say.
But Nwoye’s lawyer, John Iweanoge II, told jurors that his client had no intent to commit extortion and did not benefit from the alleged scheme. Rather, he said, she was following orders from an abusive boyfriend and had just as much reason to want to keep their affair a secret as Iweala did because she was married, too.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Frederick Yette said Iweala had more to lose, particularly given his wife’s position in the Nigerian government at the time.
“That was the kind of secret that could change a man’s life – change careers, his and his wife’s,” Yette said during closing arguments.
Iweala testified earlier in the week, acknowledging that his conduct was wrong.
“By no means does the government mean to suggest that Dr. Iweala did the right thing. He was wrong and he was weak when he had that affair,” Yette said. “But he came into the court and had to tell what he had done, he said, to keep it from happening to someone else.”
Yette said Nwoye passed on most of the money from the payoffs to Osuagwu, but not all of it.
“Queen Nwoye was the worker in this operation,” he said. “She got $11,000. The rest went to Mr. Osuagwu. But that’s like any business operation, ladies and gentleman.”
But Iweanoge said Nwoye had no part in any conspiracy.
“She was only a pawn that was being used by the devil himself,” he said.
Outside the courtroom, Iweanoge questioned why the alleged ringleader was not on trial. He said that to his knowledge Osuagwu is still living in the United States. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
Both Iweala’s and Nwoye’s marriages survived the affair, and Nwoye’s husband sat in the courtroom Friday.
