LOS ANGELES - An Arcadia man convicted of trafficking more than 30,000 DVDs with counterfeit Dolby Laboratory Licensing Corp. trademarks was sentenced to one year in prison, federal officials announced Tuesday.
Jackie Weisheng Chen, 48, was the owner of Temia Media, a Monterey Park store that sold counterfeit movies from China; these included compilation discs featuring Chinese- and American-made movies starring actors such as Jet Li and Jackie Chan, officials from the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Chen, who was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess, must start serving his prison term by Jan. 4.
"Chen is being sent to prison for selling counterfeit products, which not only is stealing from Hollywood studios and the Dolby company but is bringing a compromised product to consumers," U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Thom Mrozek said Tuesday.
Chen pleaded guilty in August last year to one count of trafficking counterfeit goods. His attorney did not return a call for comment Tuesday.
Chen's punishment is fair and sends a strong message to intellectual property offenders, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik M. Silber of the Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes Section.
The Dolby Corp. is responsible for sound quality in some feature films and DVD releases.
"The way Dolby makes money is through the technology they use. They make money through sound quality," Silber said. "When you have DVDs of inferior quality attributed to Dolby, their reputation is harmed."
The investigation began two years ago when U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized three shipments containing nearly 5,000 DVDs with counterfeit Dolby trademarks, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.
CBP officials said they seized the third shipment after two warning notices failed to deter the illegal conduct. Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations then obtained a search warrant for Temia Media, the statement said.
During the January, 2011 search, HSI agents seized nearly 25,000 DVDs with counterfeit Dolby trademarks.
An agent explained to Chen and an employee that the DVDs had counterfeit Dolby trademarks, but Chen and the employee restocked their shelves and continued to sell them, officials said.
Federal agents searched the store again in May 2011 and seized an additional 3,000 counterfeit DVDs.
Chen and the employee, Donna Qun Lin of Alhambra, were arrested and charged. Lin, who was 42 at the time, was found guilty in January on federal charges related to the trafficking and was sentenced to probation, the statement said.
