Woman Pleads Guilty to Selling Counterfeit Software With a Street Value of $2M

A Michigan woman pleaded guilty today to selling counterfeit computer software which reportedly earned her over $400,000. Jacinda Jones, 31, of Ypsilanti, Michigan pleaded guilty to one count of willful copyright infringement before a judge in Detroit. According to court documents, between July 2008 and January 2010, Jones sold more than 7,000 copies of pirated business software at discounted prices through the website cheapdl(dot)com. The software, published by several companies including Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit and Symantec had a retail value of more than $2 million.

According to court documents, Jones’ activities came to the attention of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, who made several undercover purchases of the pirated business and utility software.

She will be sentenced has been scheduled for Aug. 15, 2011. At sentencing, Jones faces maximum penalties of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

Back in December 2010, in a somewhat similar case, an Ohio man was sentenced to 30 months in prison for selling more than 35,000 illegally copied computer games over the Internet between 2005 and 2009. The estimated total retail value of the games was around $700,000.