Most controversial was the shocking revelation that Prenda uploaded their own torrents<\/a> to The Pirate Bay, creating a honeypot for the people they later sued over pirated downloads.<\/p>\n The allegations ultimately resulted in a criminal indictment last year, and now one of the main Prenda attorneys has pleaded guilty before the District Court of Minnesota. A few hours ago John Steele, 45, signed a plea agreement admitting that he is guilty of mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.<\/p>\n According to Steele, he and his colleague Paul Hansmeier generated more than $6 million by threatening BitTorrent users who allegedly downloaded pirated porn videos, some of which the attorney created and uploaded himself.<\/p>\n \u201cSteele admitted that he and Hansmeier created a series of sham entities to obtain copyrights to pornographic movies \u2013 some of which they filmed themselves \u2013 and then uploaded those movies to file-sharing websites like \u2018The Pirate Bay\u2019 in order to lure people to download the movies,\u201d the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Pirate Bay played an important role in this case. Not only were the founders of the site heard as witnesses<\/a>, but the site was also an unwitting part of Prenda\u2019s honeypot scheme as our coverage<\/a> exposed several years ago.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026defendants caused P.H. to upload their clients\u2019 pornographic movies to BitTorrent file-sharing websites, including a website named the Pirate Bay, without their clients\u2019 consent in order to entice people to download the movies and make it easier to catch those who attempted to obtain the movies,\u201d the plea agreement reads.<\/p>\n From the plea agreement<\/strong><\/p>\n Prenda Law went to great lengths to hide its direct involvement in the uploading of the material as well as its personal stake in the lawsuits and settlements, according to the plea agreement.<\/p>\n After extracting IP-addresses of account holders who allegedly shared the files Prenda created and uploaded, they asked courts for subpoenas to obtain the personal info of their targets from ISPs. This contact information was then used to coerce victims to pay high settlement fees.<\/p>\n \u201cSteele and Hansmeier used extortionate tactics such as letters and phone calls to threaten victims with enormous financial penalties and public embarrassment unless they agreed to pay a $3,000 settlement fee,\u201d the DoJ writes.<\/p>\n No sentencing date has been set yet. In theory, the Prenda attorney now faces statutory maximum sentence of 40 years in prison as well as a criminal fine of hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, by signing a plea agreement Steele is likely eligible for a reduced sentence.<\/p>\n Steele\u2019s co-defendant Paul Hansmeier remains innocent until proven otherwise. However, he appears to be worse off now that Steele\u2019s words can be used against him. Steele\u2019s full guilty plea is available here (pdf)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source: \u00a0![](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/plea-e1488876421191.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"TorrentFreak\"](\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/torrentfreak.png\")
<\/a> TorrentFreak.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"