Posted by By ZIKA BOBBY on
Nollywood actress and 2005 Gulder Ultimate star, Anita Hogan, has lost a three-month-old pregnancy following the shock caused by the publication of her nude pictures in an evening newspaper and weekly magazine.
*Alleged blackmailer arrested
Nollywood actress and 2005 Gulder Ultimate star, Anita Hogan, has lost a three-month-old pregnancy following the shock caused by the publication of her nude pictures in an evening newspaper and weekly magazine.
Anita, according to her lawyer, was engaged to be married to a white man whose nude picture was published along with hers in the Friday, August 11 edition of the newspaper and the magazine edition of August 21.
This development came just as police detectives in Lagos arrested one Emeka Nwankwo who allegedly circulated the shocking pictures to the media, after the actress rebuffed his alleged bid to blackmail and extort money from her over the lurid shots.
The shots were said to have been taken by Hogan's fiancé and stored on her personal computer.
Trouble began for the actress who is on admission at a hospital in Yaba, Lagos, when Emeka allegedly approached her about four months ago to pay him N500,000 or risk getting her pornographic pictures with the white man published in newspapers.
The actress was said to have turned down the request, which she regarded as blackmail, and Emeka allegedly went ahead with his threat to circulate the pictures to media houses.
A petition written by Anita's lawyer, Mr Tony Dania of Dania and Associates, to the Deputy Commissioner of Police SCID, Lagos, actually admitted that the pictures in circulation were those of the actress but stressed that they were Anita's private pictures with her fiance, stolen and doctored to suit the purpose of blackmail.
"The aforesaid publication is a criminal invasion of our client's privacy. From the story the suspects published, it was obvious that there was blackmail and attempts to extort money from our client. They stole some of our clients' pictures, used the computer to improvise and superimpose further images on them, called our client and demanded for money.
"The white man in the published pictures is a true resemblance of Anita's fiance who works in a very decent organisation. In fact, they have done the pre-marriage formal introduction. Anita, who lost her dad recently, was actually carrying the baby of the white man, but the shock of the aforesaid inglorious publications made her to lose her pregnancy between Saturday/Sunday, August, 12, 13, 2006," the petition alleged.
To prove that the pictures were stolen from her private computer, the actress through her counsel narrated how the computer where the controversial photos were saved developed a fault and had to be taken for repairs, from where they were allegedly stolen.
According to Anita's lawyer, "Engr Victor is the maintenance engineer that repaired our client's computers. Our client actually had her pictures in the system. Shortly after the computers were repaired and returned, one Emeka Nwankwo called and informed our client that he has some pornographic pictures of our client and a white man.
"Emeka demanded that our client should pay him N500,000 in seven days or the pictures go to the press. He gave our client his bank details.
"About three weeks after Nwankwo's call, some media houses asked the actress to react to some nude pictures of hers in their custody. After hearing from Miss Hogan, they refused to publish the pictures.
"However, on August 3, Nwankwo called and accused Hogan "of settling" the press to suppress the publication of the photographs. He threatened to keep on circulating the pictures as well as post them on the internet."
An evening newspaper went to town with the pictures on August 11.
After the publication, a trap was subsequently set for Emeka to come for the N500,000 earlier requested, so that he can reconstruct the damage already done by the published pictures.
Instead of getting the promised money, Emeka who went to meet Anita on her hospital bed, at Yaba, was swooped on by police detectives and handcuffed while he was allegedly giving his bank account number 03650932001152 to the actress.
The Investigating Police Officer (IPO) in charge of the matter, one Inspector Victor told Daily Sun on phone that arrests have been made and that investigation has already begun.
Nwankwo, 34, who described himself as an IT consultant told Daily Sun that he only wanted a little money from Anita and never meant to hurt her.
He said: "I was not happy when the other guys put the pictures in the paper. That was not what we planned to do. The image had already been put on the internet and I was asking for N70,000 to help her cleanse the image from the website."