Orange County Man Sentenced to 2½ Years in Prison for Illegally Importing Counterfeit, Name-Brand Exercise Equipment
LOS ANGELES – An Irvine man was sentenced this morning to 30 months in federal prison for trafficking in counterfeit goods, including counterfeit exercise equipment purporting to be Malibu Pilates, Bowflex, and Ab Circle Pro.
Stanley Kuo Jua Yang, 36, was sentenced by United States District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner, who remanded Yang into custody at the conclusion of today’s sentencing hearing.
In the summer of 2009, Yang imported 40-foot containers with the counterfeit exercise equipment. On September 22, 2010, federal agents served a search warrant at Yang’s Fountain Valley business and discovered additional counterfeit exercise equipment. The agents found complete machines, parts, manuals and stickers, as well as thousands of counterfeit Zumba and Core Rhythm exercise DVDs, more than 10,000 counterfeit Silhouette slim pants, and hundreds of counterfeit BMW navigation DVDs.
The value of the counterfeit goods was approximately $900,000.
The case against Yang is one of a series of criminal prosecutions in this district addressing the piracy of intellectual property and, specifically, counterfeit exercise equipment. In 2010, a Chino woman was sentenced to 41 months in prison for importing nearly $600,000 worth of counterfeit exercise equipment and paying a cash bribe to a person she thought was a United States Customs official (see: http://www.justice.gov/usao/cac/Pressroom/pr2010/155.html). In 2011, a Los Angeles man was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment, also for importation of approximately a quarter million dollars worth of counterfeit exercise equipment (see: http://www.justice.gov/usao/cac/Pressroom/2011/131.html).
The case against Yang is the product of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Release No. 12-173
