I. Case Summary

II. Featured Areas of the Record

A complete record is the precondition of meaningful appellate review.

About the Case

United States v. Bello, No. 4:23-CR-136-ALM-BD, is a federal criminal proceeding in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division, with active matters before the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States.

§ 01 The Defendant

Olamide Olatayo Bello is a United States citizen and federal taxpayer, age 47, of McKinney, Texas. He has more than twenty-five years of professional experience as a software architect and engineer, with concurrent W-2 and 1099 positions and the founding of multiple business entities. He is the founder and principal of Ajide Technology Corporation, which operated the DOBHRAP HR and payroll administration platform serving small businesses across multiple states.

Ajide Technology Corporation maintained federal contract performance history with the Department of Homeland Security (Contract No. 70CDCR21P00000005), the Department of Labor, and the United States Army (Contract Nos. W911S821C0005 and W911YN-15-P-0062), and held an AT&T commercial Managed Internet Service contract (Contract ID 7677551, 36-month term) as its enterprise internet subscriber. Mr. Bello is currently confined at FCI Seagoville, federal Register No. 65100-510, and is proceeding pro se in all pending appellate and collateral matters.

§ 02 The Charges

The Original Indictment (ECF No. 1, June 15, 2023) charged eleven defendants with a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1349. The First Superseding Indictment (ECF No. 376, December 11, 2024) — filed thirty-three days before trial — added a second count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h), against the three remaining trial defendants.

§ 03 The Trial and Sentence

A four-day jury trial was conducted January 13–16, 2025 before Chief District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III. Mr. Bello proceeded pro se with court-appointed standby counsel. On January 16, 2025 the jury returned guilty verdicts on both counts. On July 24, 2025 the district court imposed a sentence of 293 months — the statutory maximum — to be followed by three years of supervised release. An Amended Judgment, ECF No. 829, was entered October 28, 2025, ninety-six days after sentencing.

§ 04 Purposes of this Website

Indictments & Charging History

From the original eleven-defendant indictment of June 2023 to the three-defendant First Superseding Indictment filed thirty-three days before trial.

§ 01 Charging Instruments

§ 02 Comparative Summary

§ 03 Procedural Questions on the Record

• Late addition of Count Two. The § 1956(h) money-laundering count was added eighteen months after initial charging and thirty-three days before trial, on facts substantially identical to Count One. The defense has raised merger and double-jeopardy questions under United States v. Santos, 553 U.S. 507 (2008).
• IP-attribution allegation. Both indictments allege that loan applications were submitted from an internet protocol address "resolved back to Bello's residence." On the record, the lead investigating agent's FD-302 dated March 21, 2023 documents that the IP block was a Dedicated Internet Access enterprise allocation to Ajide Technology Corporation under a commercial AT&T contract. This contradiction is the subject of the Ground I Franks challenge on direct appeal.
• Reduction in charged defendants. Eight defendants were resolved by guilty plea before the Superseding Indictment was returned. Their conduct continued to be alleged in the Superseding Indictment as that of "co-conspirators."

Docket Activity & Case Events

Major entries from indictment through the pending appellate-record proceedings, drawn from the public ECF docket of United States v. Bello, No. 4:23-CR-136-ALM-BD (E.D. Tex.).

§ 01 Charging & Pretrial

§ 02 Trial

§ 03 Sentencing & Judgment

§ 04 Post-Judgment & Record Proceedings

Motions & Legal Filings

A reference of significant motions filed by Appellant and orders entered by the district court and the Fifth Circuit relating to the record on appeal.

§ 01 Record-Reconstruction Motions

§ 02 Substantive Post-Judgment Filings

§ 03 Appellate Procedure Issues Preserved

• Record Completeness. The necessity of a complete appellate record as a precondition of meaningful review under Hardy v. United States, 375 U.S. 277 (1964), and United States v. Selva, 559 F.2d 1303 (5th Cir. 1977).
• Transcript Availability. Issues involving delayed or incomplete transcript access — including the sentencing transcript produced on March 20, 2026, nearly eight months after the sentencing hearing.
• Audio Reconstruction. Court Reporter Bickham's written confirmation on March 23, 2026 that no audio recording of the sentencing hearing exists, rendering FRAP 10(c) reconstruction the only available remedy.
• Procedural Preservation. Filings undertaken to preserve issues for appellate review under United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725 (1993), and 28 U.S.C. § 2106.

Appeals & Fifth Circuit Proceedings

Five matters now active before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, including the lead direct criminal appeal and parallel collateral proceedings.

§ 01 Active Appellate Matters

§ 02 Companion Appeals Reaching the Same Trial

The Government's consolidated appellee brief in Nos. 25-40551 & 25-40661, filed April 13, 2026, states at pages 16–17 that "The district court sentenced Baribe and Ajibola to each serve a 60-month term of probation and entered judgment accordingly." That representation is now part of the record before the Fifth Circuit on the § 3553(a)(6) disparity question. See § Disparity.

§ 03 Issues Preserved on Direct Appeal

• Record completeness and unavailability of audio recording of the sentencing hearing.
• Transcript access across pretrial, evidentiary-hearing, and sentencing proceedings.
• Constitutional claims under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments and the Court Interpreters Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1827.
• Interpreter deprivation across six proceedings, contrasted with provision of certified interpreter Belinda Obi at Trial Days 2–4.
• Jurisdictional void of the Amended Judgment under Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(a), with the 14-day window exceeded by 82 days.
• Sentencing disparity under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6), as supported by the Government's own April 13, 2026 appellate filing.

§ 04 Appellate Timeline (consolidated)

Supreme Court · Petition for a Writ of Certiorari

A petition for a writ of certiorari now in resubmission posture before the Supreme Court of the United States, raising a structural due-process question concerning the application of 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) to pretrial detainees.

§ 01 Petition Posture

§ 02 Question Presented

Whether, under the procedural due-process framework of Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), a civil-action dismissal entered while the plaintiff is a pretrial detainee — and is therefore structurally unable to obtain the Bureau of Prisons trust-account records required to demonstrate in forma pauperis eligibility — may be counted as a "strike" under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).

§ 03 Significance

• The § 1915(g) three-strikes designation governs in forma pauperis eligibility for prisoners in all federal civil actions and appeals.
• Procedural dismissals of cases in which the plaintiff is structurally unable to satisfy the threshold administrative requirements raise distinct due-process questions not addressed by the Court's existing § 1915(g) jurisprudence.
• The resolution of the petition will affect related matters now pending in the Fifth Circuit, including Nos. 25-40725 and 25-40733.

Transcripts & Record Access

A documented record of transcript availability, interpreter presence, and audio status across the proceedings in United States v. Bello.

§ 01 Interpreter / Indiscernible Correlation

The following table sets forth interpreter presence and the count of "(Indiscernible)" notations on the official transcript across the principal proceedings.

On the record at ECF No. 809 (Jan. 8, 2025, pp. 57–58), Appellant requested an interpreter: "Your Honor, I would like to have an interpreter." The court responded that it would "see if we can find a Nigerian translator, but … I don't know if that's going to be possible in this short time frame." Trial commenced five days later without an interpreter. An interpreter was provided beginning on Trial Day 2.

§ 02 Sentencing Transcript & Audio

• The sentencing hearing was held on July 24, 2025.
• The transcript (ECF No. 919) was produced and filed on March 20, 2026 — approximately eight months later.
• By written correspondence dated March 23, 2026, the court reporter, Christina L. Bickham, CRR, RDR, confirmed that no audio recording of the sentencing hearing exists.
• The sentencing transcript contains "(Indiscernible)" notations at pp. 18, 21, and 22, and an on-record directive from the court reporter at p. 27: "I need you to slow down, please."
• Appellant's FRAP 10(c) and 10(e) motions to reconstruct or settle the record (ECF Nos. 895, 897, 922) were denied by ECF Nos. 902 and 928. Appellate review of the record-reconstruction question is pending.

§ 03 Record Matrix

Twelve Grounds Raised on Direct Appeal

A summary of the twelve grounds presented in the opening brief filed in United States v. Bello, No. 25-40772 (5th Cir.). Each ground is supported by record citations and authorities set forth in the brief and supporting appendix.

Sentencing Disparity

A direct comparison of the sentences imposed on the three defendants who proceeded to trial in United States v. Bello, drawn from publicly filed judgments and the Government's own April 13, 2026 appellate brief.

§ 01 Comparator Table

The Government's consolidated appellee brief in Nos. 25-40551 & 25-40661 (Doc. 61, filed April 13, 2026) states at pages 16–17: "The district court sentenced Baribe and Ajibola to each serve a 60-month term of probation and entered judgment accordingly."

§ 02 Statutory Framework

Title 18 of the United States Code, section 3553(a)(6), directs sentencing courts to consider "the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct."

The three trial defendants were convicted of the identical two counts before the same judge after the same four-day jury trial on the same record. The disparity question is preserved for direct appellate review in No. 25-40772 and was further addressed in the FRAP 28(j) notice citing the United States Sentencing Commission's adopted April 16, 2026 amendments to U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1).

§ 03 Pending Guidelines Amendment

• On April 16, 2026, the United States Sentencing Commission adopted inflationary amendments to U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1).
• The amendments, if not disapproved by Congress, become effective November 1, 2026.
• Applied to the loss calculation used at sentencing, the amendments would reduce the offense-level adjustment from +18 to +16 and the corresponding Guidelines range from 235–293 months to 188–235 months.
• This authority is the subject of a FRAP 28(j) letter of supplemental authority submitted in No. 25-40772.

Case Progress Report

Current status of pending matters and recent procedural developments.

§ 01 Active Deadlines & Pending Matters

§ 02 Recent Developments

§ 03 Active Areas of Review

• Transcript notices and ongoing record-access activity.
• Motions for record supplementation under FRAP 10(c) and 10(e).
• Pending motions in the district court and Fifth Circuit.
• Appellate briefing schedules and supplemental authority.
• Constitutional review of procedural and substantive claims.
• Continuous analysis of the procedural timeline.

Record & Procedural Timeline

A chronological reference of significant events from the original indictment through the present record-completion proceedings.

Document Center

A reference library of appellate briefs, appendices, and exhibits identified or summarized in the record.

§ 01 Briefs & Appendices · By Case Number

§ 02 Trial & District Court Record

§ 03 Evidence, Exhibits & Supplemental Record

§ 04 Congressional & Collateral Filings

§ 05 Selected Exhibits Identified in the Record

§ 06 Categories Available in the Drive Archive

• Motions and supporting memoranda
• Appellate briefs and FRAP 28(j) letters
• Court orders (district court and Fifth Circuit)
• Transcript notices and reporter correspondence
• Subpoena returns and Brady-related materials
• Procedural timelines and exhibits

Open the Google Drive archive →

Contact & Support

For media inquiries, transcript information, public-awareness efforts, document coordination, or other case-related communication.

§ 02 Disclaimer

This website is independently maintained for informational and public-awareness purposes only. Nothing contained on this website constitutes legal advice, legal representation, or an official court publication. References to allegations and arguments raised in court filings are summaries of those filings and do not represent independent findings of fact.

All referenced individuals — including government counsel, judicial officers, and witnesses — retain the presumption of innocence on any allegations of misconduct and the constitutional protections afforded under applicable law. Visitors are encouraged to independently review the official court records.