NEW YORK, September 7 - RAPSI. Russia-born Vitaly Borker, who pleaded guilty of fraud for selling counterfeit eyeglass frames as designer products, and of deceiving and intimidating his clients, has been sentenced to four years in prison, District Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara reported.
The owner of the DecorMyEyes website, who went by the name of Tony Russo, had been supplying counterfeit goods under the guise of real designer brands for three years. Borker charged credit cards 20 percent above the agreed price, and he often failed to even send out the goods that had been paid for.
In response to clients' claims, Borker, 35, intimidated, insulted, and threatened them with bodily harm, since he had access to a complete client database.
Borker also made use of an anti-advertising system, which elevated his site's position in Google searches when irate and frightened customers took to the Internet to describe their discontent. This automatically attracted more and more new customers, who then became new victims.
This led to Google making an official investigation into the situation and correcting the search algorithm, which now tracks not only the level of response, but also the nature of it.
Borker was facing up to 25 years in prison. But he admitted his guilt and showed repentance of his crimes, and this was taken into account when choosing the level of punishment.