An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced a 26-year-old plumber and hairstylist to 12 years’ imprisonment for sexual extortion.
Philip Spain Narh is said to have taken advantage of a 19-year-old SHS graduate by having vaginal and anal sex with her with the promise to help her become a web designer.
Unknown to the victim, Narh recorded his sexual encounter with her and published those nude scenes on the internet with the view of blackmailing her.
He was charged with seven counts of sexual extortion, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, publication or sale of obscene material and unlawful possession of narcotic drugs.
Narh pleaded not guilty to the charges.
He was, however, found guilty after going through a full trial.
Prosecution’s facts before the court are that the Complainant (Name withheld), is a 19-year-old Senior High School graduate and lives with her parents at Kpone, near Tema in the Greater Accra Region.
Narh, also known as Sharon Stuttgart Woods, is a 26-year-old plumber and hairstylist, residing at Bawaleshie near Dodowa with his father.
In the latter part of the year 2020, the complainant was introduced to the convict by a girl known as Delphine whom she met via Telegrarm, an online social media platform.
Prosecution said the convict created the impression that he was a female German American by name Sharon Stuttgart Woods, who was into financial services and had come to Ghana to do business.
Again, the convict portrayed himself as a philanthropist, with the passion to helping “black girls” achieve their dreams and could assist the complainant to travel abroad to further her education at MIT, Massachusetts.
The complainant informed “her” that she was into IT and wanted to be a web developer and her long-term goal was to create Artificial Intelligence.
In December 2020, the convict informed the complainant that ‘she’ had arrived in Ghana and arranged to meet with the complainant at a hotel at Dodowa to get acquainted with each other.
On December 8, 2020, while on her way to the said location, the convict sent her a text that “she” had been summoned for an urgent meeting and that the complainant should wait at Bawaleshie, at a place belonging to “her” driver’s brother.
Unknown to the victim, the said driver’s brother was the convict himself.
When she arrived at the location, the convict sent another message, compelling the complainant to have sex with the said driver after which it would be recorded, to test her loyalty, as a pre-condition to assisting her to get a place at MIT.
The convict forced the complainant into having sex with him and he recorded it.
Feeling ashamed for “acting foolishly and losing her virginity in that manner”, the complainant refused to go back to the convict and deleted her Telegram account when the convict demanded for more sex, prosecution said.
The victim created another account and the accused, who was determined to satisfy his sexual desires, reached out to the complainant under the name “Valquez Rodeo De Mel”.
He informed the victim that he was being paid to leak her sex video but decided to reach out and assist her since he knew her family.
The convict advised that the complainant met with Stuttgart Woods and settle matters with “her”.
The convict started blackmailing the victim and demanded to have anal and oral sex with her twice a month or leak the sex video via a YouTube channel for porn, WhatsApp and
Telegram if she refused.
On 5th January 2021, the convict published the complainant’s nude photos and sex video on a link on Telegram known as ADULT HOUSE, a porn channel, and sent the link to the complainant.
After watching the video, she became worried and suicidal, confided in her best friend who advised her to go back and agree to Narh’s terms.
On 12th January 2021, the complainant went to the convict to plead with him to speak to Stuttgart Woods” to delete the nude photos and video, but he became violent and forcibly had oral and vaginal sex with her, recorded the act and continued to blackmail her.
Prosecution said the victim, who persistently had suicidal thoughts, opened up to her coding tutor who noticed that she was disturbed.
He helped her to report the matter to the police.
Narh was arrested and when his room was searched, the police retrieved two mobile phones containing the complainant’s nude photos, sex
videos, a quantity of seeds, dried powdery and liquid substances suspected to be narcotic substances.
The suspected narcotic substances were sent to the Police Forensic Laboratory for testing and on 30th June 2021, the report showed the powdery substances had a net weight 95.13 grammes of narcotic substance, the seeds had a net weight of 1.10 g, and another substance contained 73.37g.
They all tested positive for cannabis sativa, a narcotic drug.
