Prosecutors call a halt to trial of California man accused of violating Digital Milleniuim Copyright Act; problems with testimony from ESA agent blamed.
Last year, authorities arrested Cal State Fullerton student Matthew Crippen, accusing him of illegally modding consoles for other people to use with pirated copies of games. Crippen finally got his day in court as his jury trial kicked off yesterday, and abruptly ended today, according to a Wired report.
After a single day of testimony, the prosecutor today dropped the indictment against Crippen “based on fairness and justice,” and after acknowledging that the government neglected to share certain facts of its witness testimony from the defense in the days leading up to trial. The witness, an undercover Entertainment Software Association agent who said Crippen modded an Xbox for him in 2008, testified that the accused had tested the work with a pirated game. However, that information hadn’t been included in his notes, reports, or sworn declaration before trial. The agent reportedly told the prosecution about that on Sunday, but that information was never passed along to the defense.
In May 2009, agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized more than 10 Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo consoles from Crippen’s home. The ICE officials were granted a search warrant to investigate his house, following a tip it received from the ESA.
One of Crippen’s defense attorneys told Wired that the government offered a plea deal last year that would have seen him given probation and restrictions on computer use in exchange for guilty pleas on a pair of felonies. Had he been found guilty at trial, he could have faced up to 10 years in prison.
A 2008 ICE report states that piracy and counterfeiting “cost the US economy in excess of $200 billion per year and more than 750,000 American jobs.” According to the ESA, one man was sentenced to 10 months in prison and $5,000 in restitution last year, after police seized about 4,000 pirated movie DVDs and over 300 pirated audio CDs in his residence.
Another notable bust occurred when a San Diego man was arrested in 2007 after a raid of his home yielded over 1,000 counterfeit discs and numerous modchips. He was charged with 10 felony-level counts, including grand theft, computer crime, and trafficking counterfeit marks.
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