Two men yesterday pleaded guilty in New Zealand to their involvement in running the once wildly popular pirating Web site Megaupload, as part of a deal they struck to avoid extradition to the US.
The pleas by Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk at the Auckland High Court ended their 10-year legal battle to avoid extradition to the US on charges that included racketeering.
Those charges would be dropped under a deal with prosecutors from both countries after the pair pleaded guilty to being part of a criminal group and causing artists to lose money by deception. They have been released on bail pending sentencing and face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Photo: AP
The US is still seeking to extradite Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, who also lives in New Zealand and has said he expects his former colleagues to testify against him.
Prosecutors said Megaupload raked in at least US$175 million — mainly from people who used the site to illegally download songs, TV shows and movies — before the FBI in early 2012 shut it down, and arrested Dotcom and other staff.
Ortmann told news Web site Stuff that after a decade of living on bail in New Zealand, the pair had firm roots in the country and were contributing to society through Mega, a legitimate cloud-storage Web site they set up after their arrest.
“There’s absolutely no point in dwelling on these proceedings any longer, and we are putting it behind us and accepting our responsibility,” Ortmann said.
Van der Kolk said they had learned from their mistakes.
“We’ve worked incredibly hard on Mega, and we strongly feel that our rehabilitation process has started a long time ago,” he told Stuff.
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