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February 2, 2023 by Andy Maxwell [TorrentFreak]
After the FBI shut down his Gears pirate IPTV empire, YouTuber Bill Omar Carrasquillo, aka Omi in a Hellcat, pleaded guilty along with two co-defendants. One was hired by Carrasquillo to work on the service from home. His sentencing memorandum claims that when he tried to quit, gunmen threatened him on two occasions after Carrasquillo said he would kill him.
When the federal government shut down pirate IPTV services owned by Pennsylvania and New Jersey man, Bill Omar Carrasquillo in November 2019, it became one of the most high-profile anti-piracy operations ever conducted in the United States.
Under handles including “Omi in a Hellcat” and “Targetin1080p” Carrasquillo publicized almost everything he did on social media, from selling pirate subscriptions and devices, to banking the mountains of cash he undoubtedly made from the service. When the FBI dismantled his operation, Carrasquillo expressed surprise that the “legal loophole” he’d exploited had somehow let him down.
As things stand, Carrasquillo and co-defendants Jesse Gonzales of California and Michael Barone of New York await sentencing after pleading guilty to a number of offenses, all related to the illegal capture and redistribution of Comcast, Verizon, Spectrum, DirecTV, and Frontier Communications broadcasts.
This week, counsel for Barone filed a sentencing memorandum explaining why the court should go easy on him. His story is fairly typical of people who take an interest in piracy at a base level and then find it difficult to check their own momentum.
Claims of being threatened by two sets of gunmen, and allegations that Carrasquillo himself threatened to kill Barone if he quit his job, are both extraordinary and unprecedented.
Read more on TorrentFreak...
After the FBI shut down his Gears pirate IPTV empire, YouTuber Bill Omar Carrasquillo, aka Omi in a Hellcat, pleaded guilty along with two co-defendants. One was hired by Carrasquillo to work on the service from home. His sentencing memorandum claims that when he tried to quit, gunmen threatened him on two occasions after Carrasquillo said he would kill him.
When the federal government shut down pirate IPTV services owned by Pennsylvania and New Jersey man, Bill Omar Carrasquillo in November 2019, it became one of the most high-profile anti-piracy operations ever conducted in the United States.
Under handles including “Omi in a Hellcat” and “Targetin1080p” Carrasquillo publicized almost everything he did on social media, from selling pirate subscriptions and devices, to banking the mountains of cash he undoubtedly made from the service. When the FBI dismantled his operation, Carrasquillo expressed surprise that the “legal loophole” he’d exploited had somehow let him down.
As things stand, Carrasquillo and co-defendants Jesse Gonzales of California and Michael Barone of New York await sentencing after pleading guilty to a number of offenses, all related to the illegal capture and redistribution of Comcast, Verizon, Spectrum, DirecTV, and Frontier Communications broadcasts.
This week, counsel for Barone filed a sentencing memorandum explaining why the court should go easy on him. His story is fairly typical of people who take an interest in piracy at a base level and then find it difficult to check their own momentum.
Claims of being threatened by two sets of gunmen, and allegations that Carrasquillo himself threatened to kill Barone if he quit his job, are both extraordinary and unprecedented.
Read more on TorrentFreak...