A Massapequa lawyer thought he’d found a straightforward client in the fall of 2022. Someone called “Paul Gam” had hired him to help complete a medical equipment purchase. Simple enough. Then the bank called.
The $84,620 cashier’s check “Paul Gam” had handed over was fraudulent. The lawyer had already moved $77,500 of it to another account, exactly as instructed, and that money was gone.
It took more than three years, a cross-country fugitive hunt, and one spectacularly ill-timed job application to bring the case to its latest chapter.
Osokam Ekufia, a New Jersey man, was extradited from Colorado to Nassau County on April 12 to face a bail jumping charge. Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly announced the arraignment Monday, April 13. Ekufia pleaded not guilty. He’s due back in court June 5.
The fraud itself was a classic check scheme. On Oct. 5, 2022, the Massapequa lawyer received the cashier’s check, which was supposed to cover both the equipment funds and his retainer fee. He deposited it into his business account. Then, following “Paul Gam’s” instructions, he transferred $77,500 to a separate account to buy the medical equipment. The bank soon notified him the original check was bogus. The $77,500 was already gone.
Financial records traced the transferred money to Ekufia’s account, according to Donnelly. He had withdrawn the funds.
Ekufia was indicted and arraigned on one count of grand larceny on Oct. 19, 2023. On April 9, 2024, he entered a plea to a lesser grand larceny charge. The terms weren’t soft. The court ordered him to pay $50,000 in upfront restitution within six months of the plea or face one to three years in prison. He was also told to return for sentencing on Oct. 15, 2024.
He paid $10,000. Not the $50,000 required.
So when Oct. 15 arrived, Ekufia didn’t. The court issued a warrant for his arrest. Under the plea agreement, the $10,000 shortfall meant he was facing that one-to-three-year sentence. He apparently decided the odds looked better elsewhere.
In October 2025, a Nassau County grand jury indicted Ekufia on bail jumping. That same month, something remarkable happened. The Colorado Department of Corrections Background Investigations Unit contacted the Nassau County Police Department with a question about Ekufia’s outstanding warrant. The warrant had popped up during a background check.
Ekufia had applied for a job as a corrections officer in Colorado.
Not great.
Colorado law enforcement arrested him on March 20. He was extradited to Nassau County on April 12, roughly 18 months after he’d failed to show up in a Nassau courtroom. If convicted on the bail jumping charge, he faces up to one and one-third to four years in prison.
Bail jumping charges in New York carry their own separate penalties on top of whatever the underlying case brings. Ekufia still faces sentencing on the original grand larceny plea, where he’s already on the hook for prison time after falling short on restitution.
The broader fraud tactic Ekufia allegedly used, sometimes called a check washing or fraudulent cashier’s check scheme, has targeted lawyers, real estate professionals, and small business owners for years. The mechanic is simple. The fraudster creates urgency, provides a check that looks legitimate, and asks the victim to quickly wire funds elsewhere before the bank can flag the problem. By the time the check bounces, the wired money is long gone.
For the Massapequa lawyer, the loss was $77,500. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a serious hit to a small practice.
The Nassau County DA’s office has pushed hard on financial fraud cases under Donnelly. Tracking a defendant across state lines and waiting out a multi-year fugitive period only to find him applying to work in a prison is, to put it plainly, not how most of these cases end.
The Long Island Press first reported the details of the extradition and arraignment Monday.
Ekufia’s next court date is June 5 in Nassau County. The restitution owed to the Massapequa lawyer, all $67,500 of the unpaid balance, still sits on the table.