By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Feb 7 – George Bridi was charged with illegally distributed movies and television shows on the Internet.
On November 18, 2021 U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Richard M. Berman held a change of plea proceeding. Inner City Press covered it.
Unlike most criminal cases in the SDNY, here the prosecutors had put out a press release announcing
"the guilty plea of GEORGE BRIDI, a citizen of the United Kingdom, for his role in the Sparks Group, an international piracy group that BRIDI pled guilty today before U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “As he admitted in court today, George Bridi participated in an international video piracy ring that illegally distributed worldwide on the Internet nearly every movie released by major production studios, as well as television shows. Bridi circumvented copyright protections on DVDs and Blu-Ray discs to illegally share movies online, but he and his crew could not evade law enforcement scrutiny, and Bridi now awaits sentencing for his crime.”
Sentencing was set for January 20, 2022 at noon. The case of course was filed in January 2020. And the sentencing, when it happened, was on February 7, 2022. Inner City Press covered it.
Judge Berman said he would impose a sentence of 22 months. Bridi's lawyer asked that it be reduced to 20 months, because he might spend two or more extra months being deported to the UK. The AUSA said that delay would be unlikely, and Judge Berman said he's already factored it in. His focus, he said, was general deterrence. Twenty two months was the sentence.
It is US v. Bridi, 20-cr-18 (Berman)
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