Robert Cimino Pleads Guilty to Criminal Copyright Infringement for Selling Pirated Adobe, Autodesk, Intuit and Quark Software

February 25, 2010

A New York man pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., to criminal copyright infringement for selling more than $250,000 worth of pirated copies of popular business, engineering and graphic design software programs.

According to court documents, Robert Cimino, 59, of Syracuse, N.Y., advertised the sale of discounted popular software programs on a variety of Internet-based advertising forums, operating under the business name “SoftwareSuite.” Customers would contact Cimino by e-mail and would typically pay for the products by PayPal. Cimino would then mail infringing copies of Adobe, Autodesk, Intuit and Quark programs that he had burned to CD or DVD to the customers, including customers in the Eastern District of Virginia. Cimino admitted that from February 2006 to September 2009, he received at least $270,035 from his sales of infringing software products.

Cimino is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga on May 28, 2010. Cimino faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine, restitution and forfeiture.

The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Tyler G. Newby of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay V. Prabhu of the Eastern District of Virginia.