Asheville attorney arrested in Buncombe courthouse after custody dispute
Asheville attorney Ilesanmi Adaramola was jailed in the Buncombe courthouse after refusing to return her 3-year-old child to his father, deepening questions around her pending felony cases.
A Buncombe County sheriff’s deputy took Asheville attorney Ilesanmi Adaramola into custody inside the Buncombe courthouse after a judge ordered her arrested for criminal contempt. She was led from court to the Buncombe County Detention Facility and remained there Monday afternoon.
The arrest came as Adaramola was already facing pending real-estate-related felony charges. Magistrate Sarita Mangum set a $100,000 secured bond and noted that Adaramola had 11 pending cases involving 15 separate charges.
District Court Judge Robin Merrell issued the arrest warrant June 8 after Adaramola twice ignored orders to appear in court and surrender custody of her 3-year-old child to the child’s father. Merrell had granted emergency custody in April after finding that Adaramola had been in Nigeria on a court date when she was supposed to turn over the toddler. She missed three hearings in the Buncombe divorce case.
Emergency custody can be granted when a child faces substantial risk of bodily harm, sexual abuse or removal from North Carolina to avoid the authority of the courts.
She represents clients in 16 matters, and her felony case has already been delayed for years. The underlying real-estate prosecution, tied to the Watchdog’s Equity Erased series, involves allegations affecting Buncombe homeowners, many of them poor or elderly, who lost homes and built-up equity. Adaramola and co-defendant Lisa Roberts-Allen have pleaded not guilty in that case.
The Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office daily bulletin logged the June 29 arrest at 10:03 a.m. on a misdemeanor criminal contempt charge. County records show the downtown detention center has 604 beds in 13 housing units, including 96 female beds. North Carolina fully implemented eCourts in all 100 counties on Oct. 13, 2025.
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