Omi Source: Matt Cardy / Getty
Entrepreneur and Youtuber Omi In A Hellcat had his fair share of legal issues for what many assume is a victimless crime, but now he’s been sentenced to 5 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $30M in property and assets.
In 2016 the popular Internet personality launched his internet television service Gears TV which became a massive hit for providing customers with hundreds of movies, TV shows, and live cable channels, but the services were stolen from their original owners like Comcast and DirecTV.
And in 2019 after amassing $34M in revenue and 100k customers, the FBI came knocking.
Now according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, after pleading guilty last year to running “one of the most brazen and successful cable TV piracy schemes ever prosecuted by the U.S. government”,
he was ordered to forfeit more than $30 million in assets, including nearly $6 million in cash; cars including Lamborghinis, Porsches, Bentleys, and McLarens; and a portfolio of more than a dozen properties he’d amassed across Philadelphia and its suburbs.
In court his lawyer Donte Mills argued Omi, real name Bill Omar Carrasquillo, beat the odds and built an empire.
“There’s something to be said for someone who never had a chance but made one for themselves and who did everything in their power not to be that person they were expected to be,” Mills said. “That’s Omar.”
“I’m only guilty of making money,” he said in a YouTube video. “I ain’t guilty of nothing else.”
Prosecutors immediately dismissed this portrayal and told the other side of the story as they saw it from a legal standpoint.
“This was illegal the entire time,” said Jason Gull, a senior attorney in the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. Gull also pointed out Omi made more than “virtually every other copyright defendant I’ve ever seen,” adding: “The message to the general public and Mr. Carrasquillo’s many, many fans is that this was a serious offense that should yield significant punishment.”
U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III essentially made an example out of Omi by handing down the sentence.
“You have a large following and there may be people who think if you can get away with it, they can too,” said the judge per the Inquirer.
