DOJ Touts Increase in Counterfeiting Prosecutions; Stiff Sentences
At her testimony before the Committee on House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, The Internet, and Intellectual Property during hearings on the PRO-IP bill last December, Sigal P. Mandelker, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General responsible for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ), touted the DOJ's increased efforts and successes in prosecuting counterfeiters. According to Mandelker, DOJ filed 217 intellectual property cases in fiscal year 2007, a 7% increase over the 204 cases filed in 2006 and a 33% increase over the 169 filed in 2005. Mandelker reported that 287 defendants were sentenced in fiscal year 2007 on IP-related charges. This is a 35% increase over 2006 and a whopping 92% increase over 2005. Mandelker noted that, in fiscal year 2006, 187 defendants were convicted of criminal copyright and trademark offenses, an increase of 57% over 2005. Of these, 39 were sentenced to 25 months or more.
Some of the highlights cited in Mandelker's testimony include:
- The October 12, 2007 sentencing, in the Eastern District of Virginia, of Abbas Chouman to 57 months in prison on one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Chouman was also ordered to forfeit $7 million. Chouman had pleaded guilty after being charged with operating a store that sold more than $7 million worth of counterfeit clothing.
- On August 6, 2007, two individual were sentenced in the Northern District of California to 37 months in prison for conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and trafficking in counterfeit goods and labels. The sentences were the result of Operation Remaster, an undercover FBI investigation which resulted in seizure of approximately 494,000 pirated music, software, and movie CDs and DVDs, and more than 6,135 stampers for production of counterfeit optical disks.
- On June 22, 2007, the federal court for the Eastern District of Virginia sentenced Hew Raymond Griffiths to 51 months in prison for running an Internet software piracy operation known as DrinkOrDie out of his home in Australia. The group was involved in the reproduction and distribution of pirated software, movies, games and music worth more than $50 million. Griffiths' extradition from Australia to the US was one of the first extraditions for an intellectual property offense.
- On June 22, 2007, the last of nine defendants pleaded guilty in the District of Wisconsin to felony copyright infringement charges arising out of their involvement in eBay auctions of counterfeit Rockwell Automation software. The software had a combined retail value of approximately $30 million.
- On August 25, 2006, the Eastern District of Virginia sentenced the operator of piracy website BUYUSA.com to six years in prison and ordered him to pay $4.1 million in restitution. The forfeiture order in the case included a helicopter, two Cessna airplanes, a Lamborghini, a Hummer, a boat, and an ambulance.