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Man Faces 155 Years In Prison If He Commits Any Minor Crime In Next Five Years

Man Faces 155 Years In Prison If He Commits Any Minor Crime In Next Five Years

Nihat Umut K. conned people after setting up a website for people to invest money

Rebecca Shepherd

Rebecca Shepherd

A convicted fraudster has managed to get his 155-year prison sentence suspended but has been warned it will be activated if he commits even a minor crime in the next five years.

The man identified only as Nihat Umut K. due to local privacy laws, created an affordable website which people were promised a yearly profit if they invested money in it.

People investing in the website - which was based in the southern Turkish city of Antalya's Muratpasa district in January 2018 - were also promised an easy way of earning money by watching advertisements.

Safak Baysal, the lawyer of Nihat Umut K.
Newsflash

The man reportedly earned TRY 616,000 (£58,375/$81,630) in four months which alerted the Ministry of Commerce Guidance and Inspection Directorate.

People involved in the system complained about the site owner, stating they could not get their promised reward.

According to the investigation, Nihat scammed more than 102 people who invested in his business in the span of one year before he was arrested by the Criminal Judge of Peace on Duty on 5 April 2019.

Nihat Umut K.
Newsflash

According to the defendant's lawyer, Safak Baysal, Nihat had initially opened an investment website that was a registered business.

However the website was closed during an inspection and the system could not operate, so investors could not receive their money promised.

Nihat spent one year in prison while the trial was pending and according to his lawyer, during that time all the victims had been given their money back.

The court sentenced the defendant to 155 years of imprisonment but decided to delay the implementation of the sentence. If Nihat stays clean of any crimes in the next five years his penalty will be dropped, otherwise, he will serve the full sentence.

Baysal said: "My client should not be involved in any crime for five years. In the slightest incident, even if he is sentenced to one day, the result will be catastrophic and he will be jailed for 155 years in total."

Back in December, a 71-year-old man was released from prison after he was sentenced to 90 years behind bars for selling marijuana.

Police Handout/Last Prisoner Project

Richard DeLisi walked free after serving 31 years of his sentence, making him believed to be the longest-serving non-violent cannabis prison, according to the The Last Prisoner Project - which had campaigned for his release.

DeLisi was sentenced to 90 years for marijuana trafficking back in 1989, when he was aged 40.

According to CBS, the typical sentence was just 12 to 17 years, but DeLisi believes he was targeted with the lengthy sentence as the judge mistakenly thought he had links to organised crime because he was an Italian from New York.

Featured Image Credit: Newsflash

Topics: News, crime