TorrentFreak has revealed that Gary Bowser, a member of Team-Xecuter (which offered hardware and software solutions to play pirated games) has reached an agreement with the prosecution and is pleading guilty to the charges against him. While initially, Bowser denied the allegations against him, but his new deal has him pleading guilty to the charges against him as part of a plea agreement that includes him paying Nintendo $4.5 million in restitution.
Bowser has also agreed to help hunt down any other Team Xecuter assets, likely reducing his sentence. Since he's nailed to the wall anyway, and as part of the plea deal the prosecution waived the other nine charges against him, which included conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Bowser faces up to ten years in prison as he has pleaded guilty "to conspiracy to circumvent technological measures and trafficking in circumvention devices". Both carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison, meaning he faces up to 10 years in jail.
Portions of the plea agreement have been included below:
“Defendant, GARY BOWSER, aka ‘GaryOPA,’ knowingly and willfully participated in a cybercriminal enterprise that hacked leading gaming consoles and that developed, manufactured, marketed, and sold a variety of circumvention devices that allowed the enterprise’s customers to play pirated versions of copyrighted video games, commonly referred to as ‘ROMs’,” says a statement that all parties agreed to.
“Mr. Bowser’s role was to market the enterprise’s products, post news releases about new products and updates to products, and work with retailers who distributed the enterprise’s products. Mr. Bowser would also post replies to inquiries from customers of these illegal circumvention devices on Maxconsole.com,” the plea agreement reads.
“The enterprise generated at least tens of millions of dollars of proceeds from the sale of its circumvention devices,” the agreement stated.
Originally, Team Xecuter tried to state that they wanted to support homebrew, but the U.S. prosecution saw that as a cover to allow the sale of hacking devices that would allow customers to play pirated ROMs. This resulted in customers using custom Nintendo Switch firmware that generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Bowser himself apparently only made $320,000 through this enterprise, with $500-1000 per month coming his way as the operator of the team-xecuter.com and maxconsole.com websites. Advertising income from both websites saw his revenue shooting up to the $320k mark.
Bowser is also currently being sued directly by Nintendo, which is still ongoing. Perhaps if he promises to leave Peach alone the case will be dismissed.
