YouTuber Sentenced To Over 5 Years and Ordered To Forfeit $30 Million in Large-Scale Cable Piracy Case
“Thirty million dollars is a lot of money [but] tangible objects aren’t everything,” U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III said in announcing the punishment during a hearing in federal court. “You have a large following and there may be people who think if you can get away with it, they can too.” Carrasquillo, 36, apologized to his family, his employees, and the cable companies he’d cheated through his business, which illegally sold content hijacked from cable boxes to thousands of online subscribers paying fees as low as $15 a month. “I really didn’t know the significance of this crime until I was picked up [by the FBI] at my home,” he said. “I feel like I let everybody down.” But while prosecutors described Carrasquillo’s crimes — which included counts of conspiracy, copyright infringement, fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion — as serious, much of Tuesday’s hearing focused on Carrasquillo’s remarkable rags-to-riches story.
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