Two clothing counterfeiters from Alberta were fined $2,000 each and forfeited more than $5,000 worth of merchandise in Yorkton Provincial Court on January 14.
Daniel Hamilton, 35, and Tania Schellenberg, 33, pleaded guilty to four counts each of copyright infringement by manufacturing and selling goods featuring copyrighted logos. The Crown stayed two other counts.
Yorkton police arrested the couple on November 29 as they were leaving the Howard Johnson Hotel with a vanload of bogus garments.
RCMP got wind of the operation when a concerned citizen phoned the detachment after seeing information on Facebook about a sale going on out of a hotel room, explained Sgt. James Morton, who heads up the Yorkton Provincial General Investigations Section (GIS).
In court Monday, Shane Wagner, representing the Crown for the federal government, explained that Schellenberg and Wagner had been purchasing plain garments and doctoring them using press-on logo stencils they ordered over the Internet for about a year.
In his own defence, Hamilton said that after leaving the military he had fallen into several sales jobs and had never been in any trouble. He said he didn't really understand that what they were doing was a serious offence. He said they were now selling their own line of legitimate goods and the forfeiture had really set them back.
Wagner confirmed that neither Hamilton nor Schellenberg had a criminal record and that they had been very cooperative with police. Taking that and the forfeiture into account, he recommended a fine of $500 per count saying he felt it was a "fair disposition."
Summary offences under the Copyright Act can carry a maximum fine of $25,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or both. If the crown decides to proceed by way of indictment penalties can go up to $1 million and five years.
