Lawyer Takes Wind out of Modern-Day Pirates’ Sales

From his corner office overlooking City Hall, attorney M. Kelly Tillery addresses the evils of pirates who sell other people’s images, their ideas, their music, their movies.

Don’t pity the little guy on the street, selling gritty copies of “The Empire Strikes Back” or shabbily made fake Nautica Apparel at $10 a pop, he says.

“They know exactly what they’re doing.”

It’s called intellectual property theft and the 42-year-old Tillery is considered a pioneer among IP attorneys.

Tillery’s spacious office shows his years of efforts.

There’s an imitation gold Rolex watch, a fake Polo baseball cap and phony Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. A boyish photo of crooner Tevin Campbell sporting a Boyz II Men T-shirt peeks out beneath a pile of counterfeit concert paraphernalia and bogus brand-name jeans.

“People are injured,” Tillery says. “Sunglasses shatter, shirts go up in flames, airplane parts break; everything in the world is being counterfeited--even baby formula.”

He pulls out a T-shirt showing Michael Bolton’s smiling face, and says noxious fumes can follow.

“You get a match near this and it will go up in flames in a second,” he says.

Tillery began this work 17 years ago. As a novice attorney from New Orleans, he first went after bootleggers at a Black Sabbath concert. Since then, he has represented Fortune 500 behemoths, small entrepreneurs and even Michael Jackson.

When Tillery began, only a handful of lawyers nationwide specialized in intellectual property theft. He now estimates the ranks have grown to 15,000 to 20,000 attorneys.

“Kelly . . . is certainly very well respected in the community of professionals who are concerned with fighting piracy and counterfeiting in the United States,” says Nils Montan, a lawyer for Warner Bros., who helps protect the intellectual property generated by the Loony Toons characters, the Batman movies and TV shows such as “Friends” and “E.R.”

He says Tillery, who helps Montan fight IP theft in Pennsylvania, “has devoted himself to working in the anti-counterfeiting field.”

Few attorneys go as far as Tillery does.

Early morning or late night may find him donning a wire and a bulletproof vest to lead a raid with federal marshals and state troopers, storming homes, warehouses, stores and trucks in search of illegally made goods.

The items are then held by authorities until suspects can be prosecuted or Tillery files a civil lawsuit.

Tillery’s firm, Leonard, Tillery & Sciolla, which handles a broad range of intellectual property, business and casualty litigation, uses a network of informants, investigators and lawyers nationwide to root out bootleggers.

But, mostly, Tillery says, his clients help him out. They spot their wares on the street, get angry and tell their personal lawyers or business managers, who then phone him.

The thefts hurt common taxpayers as well as celebrities.

“Our estimate is that counterfeiting may cost the United States $200 billion a year,” says Spring Thompson, communications director at International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition Inc., which combats IP theft by promoting laws and regulations to render it unprofitable.

“They do not pay taxes; they don’t get business licenses; they’re cheating you and I, the average citizen, in more ways than one,” says Tillery, who sits on the IACC board.

Counterfeiting is illegal in every state, but the severity of the punishment differs depending on the number of offenses. Last October, Pennsylvania passed a felony statute against counterfeiting. In some states it’s considered a misdemeanor.

“Normally, the criminal authorities won’t get involved unless it’s a lot of money,” Tillery says.

Criminal penalties range up to five-year prison sentences and fines of thousands of dollars for the big guys, the producers and importers. But even if the thieves are caught, there’s no guarantee of restitution.

Jann S. Moorehead, former general counsel for San Francisco-based Winterland Productions, the world’s largest producer of rock ‘n’ roll T-shirts and other paraphernalia, says some offenders who the company fought successfully in court “did creative things with their assets” so they wouldn’t have to pay.

“Often you’re dealing with people who develop very complex systems to find out what the next hot property is going to be . . . and evade law enforcement or investigators,” Moorehead says.

Can counterfeiting be stopped?

“As long as there’s a buck to be made there’s going to be somebody out there who’s going to try to copy what is of value and is owned by someone else,” Tillery says.

Until then, Tillery says, “Our goal is to stop them from selling the goods.”