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Kim Dotcom's Lawyer Plays Down Megaupload Worker's Guilty Plea
mrspoonsi writes with the latest from Kim Dotcom. "Kim Dotcom's US lawyer has denied that a guilty plea by one of the Megaupload's former employees has major implications for his client's case. Andrus Nomm was sentenced to a year in jail after pleading guilty on Friday to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement while working for the now defunct file-sharing site. The US is currently trying to extradite Mr Dotcom, who founded Megaupload, from New Zealand to stand trial. Mr Dotcom denies wrongdoing. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has alleged that Megaupload's staff had "operated websites that wilfully reproduced and distributed infringing copies of copyrighted works" over a period of five years, causing more than $400m (£260m) of harm to copyright owners. Nomm — a 36-year-old Estonian citizen — agreed to this damages estimate as part of his plea, according to a press release from the DoJ. He had been living in the Netherlands before he travelled to Virginia to make the deal with the US authorities. The DoJ added that Nomm had acknowledged that through his work as a computer programmer for Megaupload, he had become aware of copyright-infringing material being stored on its sites, including films and TV shows that had contained FBI anti-piracy warnings. It said he had also admitted to having downloaded copyright-infringing files himself. "This conviction is a significant step forward in the largest criminal copyright case in US history," said assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell."
Why would a German Finnish national. Who is living in New Zealand, and does business in Hong Kong be extradited to the USA? None of his business had anything at all to do with the USA. Sure he had American clients but Amazon has Chinese clients. Do you want the chinese government to be able to extradite the head of Amazon.com JeffBezos to China because that Chinese guy bought something that is illegal there? The American government wouldn't stand for it. The laws of the USA do not apply outside the country. You are not the world police.
KDC's lawyer probably advised him that getting involved in those cases would make him appear guilty, and despite not being factual, would still have an impact on jury deliberations. With all the data and assets of the company being seized by the US, would he even have the cash to afford defending the employees? Sure sounds like dirty prosecutorial tactics: deny the defendants access to their own income and property so they will have a hard time putting up a defense.
Wouldn't you rather have your day in court to fight bullshit charges?
Only if you really think you can win. Otherwise folks who ask for their day in court (In the US anyway) are severely penalized vs those that plead guilty. It sounds like this is a "Plea bargain" situation, too. Where the perpetrators of the case bought his plea in exchange for a lesser sentence than he might have received on his own.
His assets have been seized, he only gets enough from the authorities to cover his living expenses and his own legal fees. He cannot afford to hire lawyers for other people.
Not sure why Andrus Nomm is charged with anything. Was he responsible for business decisions at the company?
If he was just a developer, I'm wondering if we'll start seeing a more prosecutions against developers working for a DOJ targeted company just to get them to roll on their bosses. In this case, is he any more responsible for other peoples' file sharing than Kim Dotcom's secretary?
As for his own illegal download, yeah, him and about 2 billion other people, (probably also including Kim Dotcom's secretary).
The US kangaroo courts operate on a principal of coerced false confession. The oppressive multitude of petty laws is used to heavily over-charge defendants. They are then offered the choice of "confessing" or spending the rest of their life in the hellish sensory deprivation torture chambers of the American gulag.
Consider that "of the 82,092 defendants terminated during Fiscal Year 2013, 75,718, or 92 percent, either pled guilty or were found guilty" and "during Fiscal Year 2013, a total of 73,397, or 97 percent,of all convicted defendants pled guilty prior to or during trial." Source: United States Attorneys' Statistical Report 2013 Only 3% of federal prisoners were convicted by an actual trial!
That someone plead guilty at an American trial is no more damming than if they had farted.
Nah. It wont' happen here. First, Kim isn't even a citizen and John Key admitted the data collection on him was illegal. NZ's laws have since changed so it's now legal. Also, no one is in jail for the illegal search.
Again, "Dot Com" is not poor, and infact has been involved in significant money producing ventures since then.
But thanks for being a stooge.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Here's the deal. I will charge you with rape, murder, child molestation, bank robbery, and having a bad attitude. The minimum sentence will be 40 years, but I'm going for the max. the trial will take about a year. The cost will put your wife and children on the street and leave you with the world's most overworked public defender, so you better believe I'll get that conviction.
OR...you could plead guilty to aggravated littering and with time served we can have you home by Friday.
Because the feds have seized his assets and surprise, surprise, won't let him spend any defending his employees.
So complain about the d-bag feds.
He gave all his money to his family to appear broke on paper.