FATHER SENTENCED FOR INTERNATIONAL PARENTAL KIDNAPING

Timothy M. Morrison, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, announced that SUNDAY O. AYANGADE, 54, Indianapolis, Indiana, was sentenced to 24 months imprisonment today by U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker following his guilty plea to international parental kidnaping. This case was the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In August 2007, AYANGADE and his wife were in litigation in Marion Superior Court in Indianapolis over child custody. The judge ordered AYANGADE, who was born in Nigeria and has family still living there, not to take one of the couple's children then in the United States out of the country. AYANGADE agreed not to leave the country and not to take the child out of the country. On September 25, 2007, however, AYANGADE flew with the child to Nigeria.

AYANGADE returned to the United States without the child who remains in Nigeria with AYANGADE's family there. AYANGADE was arrested on October 16, 2007, when he returned alone to Indianapolis. AYANGADE was subsequently charged with removing the child from the United States with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of the parental rights by the child's mother.

According to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Christina McKee, who prosecuted the case for the government, Judge Barker also imposed 1 year of supervised release following AYANGADE's release from imprisonment. AYANGADE was fined in the amount of $2,000.