Information for Victims in Large Cases

Eight individuals, including Kristopher Lee Dallmann and Darryl Julius Polo, have been charged with conspiring to violate federal criminal copyright law by running an entity called Jetflicks, an online, subscription-based service headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, that permitted users to stream and, at times, download copyrighted television programs without the permission of the relevant copyright owners. According to the indictment, the defendants reproduced tens of thousands of copyrighted television episodes without authorization and made these infringing programs available to tens of thousands of paid subscribers located throughout the U.S. At one point, Jetflicks claimed to have more than 183,200 different television episodes. One of the defendants, Polo, left Jetflicks and created a competing site based in Las Vegas called iStreamItAll (ISIA) that at one point claimed to have 118,479 different television episodes and 10,980 individual movies. Like Jetflicks, ISIA offered content for a regular subscription fee to viewers around the United States, and ISIA publicly asserted that it had more content than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Amazon Prime. In addition, the two services were not only available to subscribers over the internet but specifically designed to work on many different types of devices, platforms and software including numerous varieties of computer operating systems, smartphones, tablets, smart televisions, video game consoles, digital media players, set-top boxes and web browsers. 

Both Jetflicks and ISIA allegedly obtained infringing works from pirate websites around the world—including some of the globe’s biggest torrent and Usenet sites specializing in unauthorized content such as The Pirate Bay, RARBG, and TorrentDay—using automated computer scripts to locate, download, process, and store the illegal files, and then quickly make that content available on servers in Canada to United States subscribers for streaming and/or downloading. Essentially, Jetflicks and ISIA were two of the largest streaming services in the United States but did not compensate copyright owners for streaming and making available for download the unauthorized works they offered to their paid subscribers.

Besides the conspiracy charge, Dallmann has been charged with additional counts of criminal copyright infringement as well as money laundering in connection with Jetflicks, and Polo faces similar additional charges in connection with ISIA. More information can be found in the DOJ press release.

Blue Bell’s former president, Paul Kruse, was indicted separately on October 20, 2020 in connection with his alleged role in covering up from customers what the company knew about the contaminated ice cream.  The case against Mr. Kruse went to trial in August 2022 and resulted in a mistrial.  Mr. Kruse subsequently agreed to a plea agreement related to Blue Bell’s distribution of listeria-tainted ice cream in 2015.  The plea agreement and criminal information charging Mr. Kruse with a criminal misdemeanor violation of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act for causing the distribution of adulterated food in interstate commerce was filed in the Western District of Texas. The court set a plea and sentencing hearing for Mr. Kruse on March 28 at 4 pm at the federal courthouse in Austin, Texas.  The following is information relevant to the case against Mr. Kruse.

Court Assigned: The case of U.S. v. Kruse is assigned to the Honorable Robert Pitman, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, U.S. Federal Building and Courthouse, 501 West Fifth Street, Suite 5300, Austin, TX, 787011

The information on this website will be updated as new developments arise in the case.

The charges in this case relate to a wire fraud scheme from in or about late 2020 to at least in or about November 2022. The defendant and co-conspirators obtained United States Postal Service (USPS) keys capable of opening blue USPS collection boxes. These keys are known as "arrow keys." The defendant used stolen arrow keys to open blue USPS collection boxes, stole the mail inside, and then searched that mail for checks and money orders. Once the defendant obtained checks and money orders from the mailstream, he altered the payee name on those checks and money orders to be payable to himself and co-conspirators, and then either cashed those forged checks and money orders or deposited those forged checks and money orders into accounts controlled by himself and co-conspirators. A sentencing hearing is scheduled before Judge R. Barclay Surrick on October 1, 2024 at 1:00pm at U.S. Courthouse, 601 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA for the case which involves defendant Zachkey James.

From 2005 to 2014, Ari Tietolman, 50, directed a fraud scheme from Montréal, Canada. In this scheme, Tietolman’s network of telemarketers sold worthless or non-existent services, including bogus prescription drug rebate programs, fraudulent identity theft protection services, and bogus legal service plans. Tietolman’s associates then debited the victims’ bank accounts without their informed consent. Through this scheme, Tietolman and his co-schemers, including co-defendants Marc Roy Ferry and Adam Harper, took millions of dollars from thousands of senior citizens in the United States. Tietolman, Ferry, and Harper entered guilty pleas before United States District Judge Gerald A. McHugh to wire fraud and money laundering counts, all arising from their operation of this scheme that targeted senior citizens with deceptive telemarketing calls. Sentencing hearings for Tietolman and Ferry are scheduled for August 12-13, 2024, at the United States Courthouse, 601 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA  19106. Sentencing for defendant Harper is yet to be scheduled.