Eight Charged in ‘Star Wars’ Piracy Case Amid Crackdown

Eight people were charged Tuesday with involvement in the illegal release of “Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith” before the movie appeared in theaters.

Court documents allege a chain of events that started at a post-production facility and ended with the film being shown on the Internet a day before its worldwide release.

The case is the latest attempt to crack down on movie piracy by law enforcement and the film industry.

“The charges handed down today by the U.S. attorney prove that forensic markings on screeners and early copies of movies are doing their job in locating movie pirates,” said Dan Glickman, chief executive of the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

Screeners are copies of films made available for such purposes as reviewing or for use by voters in industry awards programs.

Federal prosecutors said Albert Valente, 28, of Lakewood took a copy of the movie from a post-production facility where he worked and gave it to a friend, Jessie Lumada, 28, of Long Beach. Lumada then allegedly passed along the movie to Ramon Valdez, 30, of Long Beach, who shared it with three of his friends, one of whom made a copy of the movie and gave it to her cousin, authorities said.

According to the prosecution, the cousin loaned his copy to Marc Hoaglin, 36, of Huntington Beach, who uploaded the film onto the Internet on May 18.

Also charged were Michael Fousse, 42, of Monrovia; Dwight Sitya, 27, of La Crescenta; and Stephani Reiko Gima, 25, and Joel De Sagun Dimaano, 33, both of Los Angeles.

Valente is charged with willfully infringing a copyright by distributing his copy of the movie. The U.S. attorney’s office said he agreed to plead guilty. Six defendants are charged with willfully infringing a copyright by distributing or reproducing copies of the film. All were charged with misdemeanors that carry up to one year in prison.

Hoaglin is charged with one felony count of uploading the movie onto the Internet. He faces up to three years in prison if convicted. All eight defendants are scheduled to appear in federal court next month.

It was unclear whether seven defendants had lawyers, but an after-hours call left for Valente’s attorney was not returned.