This eventually caught the attention of the US Justice Department. In 2015 we first reported that two Pirate Bay co-founders had been questioned by Swedish police, acting on behalf of the FBI. The feds were interested in the honeypot evidence, to build a case against Prenda.<\/p>\n
A year later the investigation was finished, resulting in a\u00a0criminal indictment<\/a>\u00a0against Prenda attorneys Paul Hansmeier and John Steele. The US Government accused the pair of various crimes, including money laundering, perjury, mail and wire fraud.<\/p>\n Since then both defendants have signed plea agreements, admitting their guilt in the fraudulent scheme.<\/p>\n On Friday the first of the two was sentenced. Paul Hansmeier appeared before a federal court in the District of Minnesota, where U.S. District Judge Joan N. Ericksen sentenced the Prenda attorney to 14 years in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release.<\/p>\n The Judge departed upward from the 12.5-year prison sentence the U.S. prosecutor\u00a0recommended<\/a>. In addition to the prison sentence, Hansmeier must pay his victims a total of $1.5 million in restitution.<\/p>\n Among other things, Hansmeier instructed his brother to upload torrents of videos he produced himself. In doing so he misled the court, as he made it appear as if the videos were from a third-party company.<\/p>\n Whether the people that were sued were indeed guilty wasn\u2019t much of an issue. This means that many innocent people were likely targeted as well.<\/p>\n \u201cHansmeier was generally content to take this step without investigating whether the subscriber was, in fact, the infringer. Hansmeier thus inflicted plenty of pain on persons who did not, in fact, download his pornographic bait,\u201d the Government previously wrote.<\/p>\n All victims of the Prenda scheme are all eligible for restitution. The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office of the District of Minnesota\u00a0previously invited<\/a>\u00a0those who were affected by the fraudulent anti-piracy lawyers to come forward.<\/p>\n John Steele, the second defendant in the Prenda case, is scheduled to be sentenced next month. The U.S. prosecutor previously stated that Steele has been very cooperative following his arrest so has recommended an 8-10 year sentence,\u00a0as FCT notes<\/a>.<\/p>\n A copy of the sentencing document is available\u00a0here (pdf)<\/a>. Hansmeier requested to be released on bail while he awaits the appeal of his (denied) motion to dismiss the indictment. This request was denied.<\/p>\n Source: \u00a0![\"TorrentFreak\"](\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/torrentfreak.png\")
<\/a> TorrentFreak.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"