LOS ANGELES (AP) – Major motion picture studios on Thursday sued a suspended Los Angeles police captain for alleged copyright infringement in her scheme selling pirated and counterfeit DVDs. Capt. Julie D. Nelson, 52, was arrested in December after police found hundreds of bootleg movie DVDs in her car, her home and a friend’s apartment. Nelson, who pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges, was sentenced last month to three years probation, 200 hours of community service and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Los Angeles by Columbia Pictures, Disney, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Miramax, Paramount Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, United Artists, Universal City Studios and Warner Bros. “As a police captain, Nelson had a duty to enforce the laws, not to break them,” said James Spertus, director of ant-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association of America. The plaintiffs said damages have not been calculated but could result in $150,000 in statutory damages for each infringement. Authorities have said Nelson’s boyfriend, Edward Monroy, produced thousands of movies but have not filed charges against him. Monroy told a MPAA investigator he knew people at several post-production houses in Los Angeles who gave him access to the latest movies, according to the lawsuit. Meanwhile, the city attorney’s office announced Thursday it filed 41 cases involving the selling of pirated DVDs. Charges include the illegal possession for sale of illegal DVDs that could result in up to a year in jail and/or a $250,000 fine for possession of 100 or more audio visual works.
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