The five, using names such as iced, kidzapped, niterangr and tcut, were caught as part of ‘Operation Higher Education’ – a component of ‘Operation Fastlink‘ – and are all charged with conspiracy.

According to a report, Dominic Tymorek, a 53 year-old from Woodstock, Georgia, and 57 year-old Robert Hardick, of Getzville, N.Y., face three counts. Steven Fiatarone, a 55 year-old from Spring Hill, Florida and 43-year-old Michael Uszakow, of Oakdale, Minn., face two counts and William Parrott, of Roanoke Rapids, N.C., faces one count.

If convicted, the men face up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000 on each count.

At the same time, 25 year-old Daniel Jaeger, aka ‘Microeguy’ of Wappinger, New York, waived his right to indictment and pleaded guilty before Magistrate Judge Donna F. Martinez in Hartford. Jaeger admitted to being a ’scene member’ for two years and building and running an FTP server known as ‘DataStream’ (DS), used for the distribution of pirated material.

Jaeger admitted that he knew that those accused along with him had uploaded pirate material to both ‘DataStream’ and another FTP site known as ‘Arakis’ (AKS)

Jaeger also faces five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.