Agradaa reunites with family after 8 months in prison
Patricia Asiedu Asiamah, popularly known as Nana Agradaa, has been released from Nsawam Prison after serving eight months in custody, following a successful appeal that drastically reduced her original jail term.
Her husband confirmed her release in a Facebook post on Tuesday, March 3, writing: “Thank God my wife is finally home.”
Nana Agradaa was sentenced on July 3, 2025, by an Accra Circuit Court to 15 years’ imprisonment on two counts of defrauding by false pretence and charlatanic advertisement, with the sentences to run concurrently. The conviction arose from a 2022 televised broadcast in which she announced she would share GH¢300,000 with members of the public, but instead collected various sums of money without making any disbursements.
Her lawyers challenged the sentence at the Amasaman High Court, arguing that it was excessive. In a ruling delivered in February 2026, Justice Solomon Oppong-Twumasi agreed and reduced the custodial term to 12 calendar months.
“Considering all the circumstances of the case together, I came to the irresistible conclusion that the sentence of 15 years imprisonment imposed on the Appellant was indeed unusually harsh and excessive,” the judge held.
The revised sentence was ordered to take effect from the date of conviction, July 3, 2025. The High Court also imposed a fine of GH¢2,400, in default of which she would serve an additional three months’ imprisonment.
In its reasoning, the court indicated that the trial judge had not sufficiently weighed the scope of the offence. “The trial judge did not fairly consider the enormity of the crime involved, but she became fixated only on the person involved in imposing the sentence on the Appellant,” the ruling stated.
The High Court observed that the trial record showed two complainants who each lost GH¢500, totalling GH¢1,000. However, it clarified that the relatively small sum did not excuse the criminal conduct. “The court is not by any stretch of imagination to be understood to be saying that because there were only two victims of the Appellant’s conduct or because the amount involved was only GH¢1,000, the Appellant did not commit any crime nor is it also to be understood to be saying that because of the rather small amount of money, the victims did not suffer any losses at all,” it said.
The court further criticised the handling of evidential inconsistencies, noting: “There were indeed some inconsistencies in the evidence of both sides, but strangely, in her judgment, the Honourable trial judge only commented on the inconsistencies in the evidence of the Appellant but did not even in passing, comment on the inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case.”
