ATHENS, Ohio — The City of Athens on Monday shared updates regarding the convictions and restitution resulting from a November 2024 cyber theft, wherein it lost nearly $722,000.
Chijioke Timothy Odimegwu and Harafat Mogaji were sentenced Sept. 25 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa to serve 9.25 years and 6.5 years, respectively.
According to a city press release, “The City was recognized as a victim, and the court ordered restitution for its remaining unrecovered loss and attorney’s fees.”
In November 2024, the city lost $722,000 in an email scam. The city thought it was paying invoices from Pepper Construction for the Stimson Avenue fire station — but the money instead went into a fraudulent account.
The city has received $205,000 to date in recovered stolen funds and a $200,000 insurance payout, Mayor Steve Patterson said at Monday night’s Athens City Council meeting.
“Those payments addressed part of the loss, but they did not make the city whole,” Patterson said at the Monday, Sept. 28 meeting. “The restitution order will allow the city to recover the balance of what was stolen.”
“The indictment, guilty pleas, and sentences do not undo the theft,” Patterson said. “They do not give back the time our staff has spent responding to it or erase the effect an incident has on public trust. But Friday’s outcome is meaningful. The city was heard in court, its losses were recognized, and full restitution was ordered.”
Reading from a prepared statement at the council meeting, Patterson praised Deputy Service-Safety Director Andrew Chiki and Athens Police Department Lt. Adam Claar, lead investigator, for their work on the case.
Chiki read the city’s victim impact statement in Des Moines, where the case, United States v. Odimegwu and Mogaji, No. 4:25-cr-00139, was heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.
“He spoke about the financial loss, the work required to respond to the theft, and what it means when public money entrusted to a city is stolen,” Patterson said. “The city was recognized as a victim, and the court ordered restitution for our remaining unrecovered loss and attorney’s fees.”
Chiki’s testimony before the federal court was instrumental in the sentencing, Patterson said.
Late last year, Athens City Council adopted a state-recommended cybersecurity policy that outlines specific procedures to electronic payments, including multiple layers of authentication and signatures, before transfers into accounts are made.
