Damario Boyd v District of Rhode Island, Government of the United States of America

The Applicant is aged 30 and is a citizen of the United States. He is wanted for extradition to the US to be prosecuted there and stand trial on an 11 count indictment. What is alleged against him is that, between 2017 and June 2021, the Applicant undertook a series of frauds on a US citizen called Joseph Maloney, by taking on the online persona of a woman called Jaynay Harley. The upshot, say the US prosecutors, is that Maloney was fraudulently induced by the Applicant to transfer sums into the Applicant’s US bank account, with an overall aggregate of US$1.2m. That is said to have been funded by Maloney misappropriating the money from his employer, a private hospital in the US. Some of it is said to have been paid by Maloney to the Applicant, some is said to have been diverted by being paid direct to the Applicant from the private hospital. The 11 alleged crimes are said to have begun with aggravated identity theft by the Applicant, in assuming Ms Harley’s online identity. They are said to have ended with extortionate threats made by the Applicant to Maloney in May 2021, at the point when Maloney was refusing to procure the transfer of any more money. The 9 alleged frauds in between start and finish have associated dates, 6 of them being before August 2019, and the remaining 3 being in April and May 2021.

The US authorities say and accept that the Applicant came to the UK in October 2020 and has not returned to the US since. In October 2020, he was aged 24. He had, by then, a UK-based partner who he had met originally in 2015 in Florida, and they had by then two daughters living here in the UK with their mother, born in April 2016 and July 2018. The two daughters were aged 4 and 2 when the Applicant took up residence in the UK with the family. Prior to that, there had been contact and travel between the UK and US. In November 2019, the partner had been denied entry to the US. The couple have a son born in August 2022 and another daughter born in July 2024. The Applicant was arrested on the accusation Extradition Request on 8 August 2024, just after the birth of the fourth and youngest child. He has been on remand in prison for the 2 years since then, in London. The family are in Nottingham. He resists extradition.

At a 2-day hearing in March 2025 at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, the Applicant and the partner both gave oral evidence. So did Dr Sharon Pettle a consultant clinical psychologist specialising in child and family mental health. Extradition was ordered by the Home Secretary on 28 April 2025, following a detailed and comprehensive judgment of District Judge Sternberg (the Judge) on 21 March 2025, who rejected the various bases for resisting extradition, of which two remain relevant. The first is the forum bar in section 83A of the Extradition Act 2003. The second is Article 8 ECHR, which applies to each of the 6 members of the family: the Applicant, the partner and each of the 4 children. Mr Hawkes emphasises a link or overlap between the two bases.

In analysing the forum bar, the Judge identified the statutory question of whether extradition would not be in the interests of justice (s.83A(1)), by reference to a threshold question (s.83A(2)(a)) and then 7 statutorily prescribed “specified matters relating to the interests of justice” (s.83A(2)(b) and (3)(a)-(g)). The threshold question involves asking whether a substantial measure of the requested person’s relevant activity was performed in the UK. The Judge looked at that question, by distinguishing between different counts in the indictment, finding that the April and May 2021 alleged frauds (counts 7-9) and the May 2021 alleged extortionate threats (count 10) were all relevant activity performed in the UK, but that the aggravated identity theft (count 11) and the other 6 alleged frauds between February 2019 and July 2019 (counts 1-6) were not. Mr Hawkes criticises the Judge’s approach and his conclusion. He relies on the discussion of extradition offences and double criminality by the Supreme Court in El Khouri v USA [2025] UKSC 3. But the Judge went on to analyse the specified matters by assuming as a premise that he was wrong to distinguish between the different counts, so that point has no arguable traction in this case. This is not a case in which it is difficult to see what activity was performed by the Applicant in the United Kingdom.

The Judge set out a detailed reasoned analysis of the specified matters. He considered the place of the occurrence of the resultant loss and harm being the United States (s.83A(3)(a)), assessing this to be a weighty factor in the circumstances of this case. He considered the interests of the victims (s.83A(3)(b)). He did so in terms of the corporate victim, the private hospital employer whose money Maloney had allegedly stolen to make transfers to the Applicant. He also did so in terms of Maloney as the direct victim of the alleged frauds and threats. He considered that the interests of the victims was a factor which weighed heavily. The Judge considered resultant delays from proceeding with a prosecution in the US and in the UK (s.83A(3)(e)), and compared the readiness in the US authorities to schedule the trial with the prospect of delays in taking matters over to prosecute them here, in the context of a US criminal investigation which had spanned many years. The Judge regarded that as a weighty factor. The Judge considered the desirability (s.83A(3)(f)) of all prosecutions taking place in the same place, viewed from the perspective in particular of witnesses and questions of practicability of their giving evidence. The Judge concluded that that factor weighed firmly in the balance. All of these were factors which supported extradition, viewed through the prism of forum and the interests of justice. As to the other statutory matters, there was no available statement of a prosecutor’s belief (s.83A(3)(c); Love [2018] EWHC 172 (Admin) at §55), which was therefore a neutral factor. The Judge accepted, in the Applicant’s favour, that in principle the evidence could be made available for a trial in the UK (s.83A(3)(d)). He treated that as weighing in the balance against extradition, viewed through the prism of forum and the interests of justice. The Judge considered the Applicant’s connections with the UK (s.83A(3)(g)). He accepted that these were substantial and weighed firmly in the balance against extradition, in terms of forum and the interests of justice.

Having conducted the evaluative exercise of considering relevant features and giving them appropriate weight, the Judge concluded that the interests of justice features which weighed in favour of the US as forum and therefore in favour of extradition substantially outweighed those weighing in favour of the UK. There was therefore no forum bar.

In analysing the Article 8 issue, the Judge conducted the familiar Article 8 balancing exercise, having identified the key factors which weighed against and in favour of extradition, in order to assess whether the interference with Article 8 rights was proportionate. The analysis was detailed, and it was linked to the Judge’s earlier detailed description of the evidence and his findings of fact. The Judge recognised that the Applicant has no previous convictions; that he is not a fugitive; and that he would face a likely impediment to returning to the UK. The Judge considered the evidence of Dr Pettle. The Judge recognised the partner’s mental health condition, its likely deterioration, and the loss of practical and emotional support from the Applicant if he were extradited, in a context where the partner is already struggling to cope, and where the impact is real and stark. The Judge recognised that the children were also already struggling, and that they would each be deeply affected by their father’s extradition. He considered the practical impacts of the separation of them from the Applicant, for him, for the partner and for each child, and the unlikelihood of any face-to-face contact. He considered the possibility of the Applicant being prosecuted here, reminding himself of the specific framework for consideration of forum and the interests of justice under section 83A.

The Judge’s assessment was that all of the factors cumulatively capable of weighing against extradition were outweighed by the substantial and weighty public interest in extradition under the international arrangements between the UK and the US, which public interest considerations were particularly weighty in the context of these serious alleged crimes. The Judge identified the continuing help that will be available to the partner from family members and the mental health support that would continue to be available. The Judge identified the mental health assessment and services available to the Applicant from the US authorities, which had been evidenced.

Mr Hawkes rightly emphasises that the test for today is only whether there is a reasonably arguable appeal. But applying that test to the sustained attack which he mounts to the Judge’s reasoning and conclusions, I have come to the same view as did Collins Rice J on the papers. There is no realistic prospect of success on the forum ground, or the Article 8 ground, including when the various points overlap or can mutually reinforce.

As to forum, Mr Hawkes says that in principle the Applicant should be prosecuted here in the UK, given the conduct alleged to have taken place here and the extraterritorial nature of fraud offences in our criminal law. He says that this is the conclusion on forum and the interests of justice which follows inexorably from properly applying the statutory criteria. He also says the true alleged victim in the case is the private hospital, not any individual or individuals. He emphasises that there is no statutory hierarchy of factors. He says the UK is a realistic and practical forum; that the US investigation did not take “many years” but only 3 years; that desirability and practicability are met for the trial and video link is entirely adequate for witnesses; that whether witnesses would be compellable here is nothing to the point, and that video-link resolves any problem. He says the Applicant’s very substantial UK connections weigh far more heavily than the Judge considered, when the other family members and in particular the four children are taken into account.

I have considered all of the points which have been put forward. But in my judgment, there is no realistic prospect of those points succeeding in establishing that the Judge was wrong on the forum issue. I do not accept, even arguably, that the criticisms of the Judge’s judgment are made out. The Judge’s evaluative assessment was legally sound, factually correct, properly balanced, and cogently reasoned. It is not arguably wrong.

As to Article 8, Mr Hawkes says there is a link and he says “parasitic” nature of the Article 8 issue. He says the public interest in extradition is substantially reduced if the forum analysis is conducted again and differently and correctly; that the proportionate response in this case, given the harm, is the Applicant standing trial here rather than being extradited. He says that the comparable sentence of imprisonment in this jurisdiction (for which the Judge gave an indicative starting point of 7 years imprisonment) would need to be tempered by any applicable reduction if there were guilty plea; and that very importantly the family would be able to visit the Applicant in the UK on remand or in serving any prison sentence. Mr Hawkes emphasises the serious obstacles that the Applicant is likely to face as to returning to the UK; and the practical impossibility (he invites “judicial notice”) of the partner or the children being able to travel to the US to visit him there. He emphasises that the partner and children are all UK nationals, that the partner has her recognised and significant mental health condition, is vulnerable, is fragile and already overwhelmed; and that she has a history of self-harm. He says that support from the family and from mental health services is no answer to the prospect of deterioration; that the Judge’s description of “hardship” for the family was a serious and anodyne understatement; that there is a real risk that the partner would attempt and succeed in taking her own life, or would become an inpatient in mental health care, either of which would leave the children without a parent. Mr Hawkes emphasises the severe negative effects that extradition would have on the already unsettled and anxious children. He relies on putative fresh evidence to show an evidenced picture of further deterioration on the part of the partner and of the intervention of local mental health services in relation to the oldest child (aged 10) in the context of her mental health, with self-harm and suicidal ideation. He points to the report of Dr Pettle and the serious negative consequences which she described. He submits that there is on the evidence an unacceptably high risk of completed suicide by the partner; and that physical contact between the children and their father has been assessed as essential to their well-being. He says that the evidence of Dr Pettle was downplayed by the Judge, as was her expertise. He says the Judge failed to explore alternatives which could meet “the public interest in extradition” (citing HH [2012] UKSC 25 at §33), when there is an alternative which provides the reconciling solution to vindicate the public interests and avoid impunity. That alternative is trial in the UK. Mr Hawkes submits that the devastating and irreversible impacts of extradition make extradition disproportionate in Article 8 terms when viewed from the perspective of the relevant individuals whose Article 8 rights are being interfered with.

Again, I have considered all the points made. However, in my judgment, there is no realistic prospect of the appeal succeeding on Article 8 grounds. I do not accept that the criticisms of the Judge’s judgment are, even arguably, made out. The Judge carefully weighed all the relevant features of the case. There was no error of approach or evaluation. The Judge recognised that this is a case where extradition will involve severe negative effects and impacts for each member of the family. I can test the position in this way. Even if this Court were striking the balance for itself, and even having regard to the putative fresh evidence, I can see no realistic prospect that the outcome would be different and found to have been wrong. Even assuming that “prosecution here” is a relevant Article 8 alternative at least in extreme cases (HH at §83), the “public interest in extradition” is not in this case met without extradition. The strong public interest considerations in favour of extradition decisively outweigh those features which weigh against it. Extradition is not disproportionate. The contrary is not reasonably arguable.

Finally, in fairness to the Judge, I record that he said this: “I consider that Diri v USA [2015] EWHC 2130 (Admin) (in particular at §§46-48) is binding on me and disposes of this issue [ie. reliance on forum under the head of Article 8] so far as the defence assert that the possibility of trial in this jurisdiction is relevant to article 8 ECHR”. I record that among the long list of criticisms made in writing and orally, this observation by the Judge was not impugned and Diri was not addressed or even provided. That is an endnote. In the context and circumstances, nothing turns on this observation.

The appeal has no realistic prospect of success. That was the view of Collins Rice J when she considered this case on the papers. Having considered it afresh, that is my view. I will refuse permission to appeal and since the putative fresh evidence is incapable of being decisive, I will refuse permission to adduce it.