Washington, D.C. - Qiyao Yuan, an owner of a local merchandise business, YY Enterprises, Inc., located at 1225 4th Street, NE, Washington, D.C., has been sentenced to a term of 12 months in prison to be followed by two years of supervised release for his role in a conspiracy to commit copyright infringement in connection with the sales of counterfeit goods, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor announced today.
Yuan, 43, of Maryland, received his sentence today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before the Honorable Ellen S. Huvelle. Yuan pled guilty in May 2006, following earlier raids of numerous warehouses linking him and others to the sale of an assortment of counterfeit goods in the District of Columbia.
The search warrants, which were executed on November 10, 2005, at multiple locations, linked the defendant to the sale of counterfeit goods, including luxury handbags and wallets, movies, sound recordings and sports jerseys in the largest crackdown to date on counterfeit goods in the District of Columbia.
Four different businesses, YY Enterprises, Inc.; Wazir Marble and General Merchandise, located at 1329 4th Street, NE; ANA Wholesale also known as Lai Wholesale Gifts, located at 1335 4th Street, NE; and Gifts Unlimited Inc., located at 1345 A 4th Street, NE, were the subject of the search warrants.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Taylor commended the Metropolitan Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Virginia Office of the Attorney General. In addition, he praised legal assistants Lisa Robinson and Teesha Tobias, and Thomas Royal from the Litigation Support Unit. Lastly, he commended Assistant U.S. Attorney John Carlin in the District of Columbia's Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Unit, and Trial Attorney Corbin Weiss of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.
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