(CHICAGO) A Cook County judge on Tuesday hammered a West African immigrant with a six-year prison sentence for lying to the court about the heirs of a woman killed in a traffic accident.
Bangaly Sylla apologized to Judge Daniel Lynch for failing to disclose that his niece was married at the time of her death on a highway in Northwest Indiana in 2007, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.
Sylla, the court-appointed administrator for the estate of his niece, Hawa Sissoko, originally told the court her only beneficiaries were her parents and eight siblings living in war-torn Mali. He said she was not married.
A jury awarded the family $4.25 million for their loss. But attorneys for Roadway Express, the company whose truck struck Sissoko, 28, on Interstate 80/90, suspected she was married and her husband was the sole surviving heir.
The attorneys, who believed her family in Africa was part of the uncle’s plot to deceive the court, persuaded the judge to freeze the huge judgment while they investigated their suspicions.
In January 2013, Lynch found the court had been deceived and Sissoko was married to a cabbie living in New York. He overturned the $4.25 million judgment and barred the family in Africa from recovering any damages.
The husband was estranged from Sissoko, who lived in Chicago with her uncle and his wife. The husband reached a $60,000 settlement with the trucking company.
The judge then took the rare step of bringing contempt of court charges against Sylla, who was convicted after a two-day trial in May.
Terry Ekl, a private attorney appointed by the court to prosecute Sylla on the contempt charges, called the case “highly unusual.”
“This case represents the unique situation where the court was presented with direct proof that serious untruths were made,” Ekl said Tuesday after the sentencing.
“The false statements made by Mr. Sylla constituted a serious breach of his obligations as the administrator of the estate of Hawa Sissoko,” he said. “The court obviously considered the conduct to be serious.”
— Chicago Sun-Times
