The noose appears to be tightening around one of Europe's largest software counterfeiting rings as a German court sentenced a second member of the network to prison on Monday, and handed a sentence to his father . . .
The noose appears to be tightening around one of Europe's largest software counterfeiting rings as a German court sentenced a second member of the network to prison on Monday, and handed a sentence to his father for helping run front operations.

After an 18-week trial, a criminal court in Stuttgart, Germany, sentenced the convicted software pirate to three years in prison without parole for copyright infringement and selling counterfeit Microsoft Corp. software. The court also convicted the defendant's father for his participation in the counterfeiting scheme, issuing him a 16-month jail term and 100 hours of community service.

The defendant, Dieter Rimmele, appears to be in his 30s while his father, Hubert Rimmele is 58 years old, according to sources close to the case. Dieter Rimmele had previously been arrested in 1999 for software manipulation and was sentenced to a year in jail. The three-year sentence he received on Monday comes on top of the 10 months he has already served in jail since being arrested late last year.

The link for this article located at Scarlet Pruitt, IDG News Service is no longer available.