DirecTV, NDS Win $24 Million in Piracy Case

[Gregg Lengling]

DirecTV won another fight with an alleged satellite TV pirate.

This week, Martin Mullen, also known as Martin P. Stewart, was sentenced by U.S. District Court in Florida to seven years in prison and ordered to pay DirecTV and a subsidiary of smart card provider NDS Ltd. 24 million in restitution. Mullen pled guilty to conspiracy to commit offenses involving satellite piracy, DirecTV said.

The satellite TV company said Mullen admitted he was engaged in a satellite TV piracy scheme involving more than 100 sub-dealers and the distribution of thousands of illegal smart cards in Canada and the United States. Evidence presented at the sentencing hearing showed Mullen had been manufacturing and distributing satellite TV hacking technology since the 1980s, first attacking C-Band technology and then hacking DirecTV access cards in the 1990s and through 2001, DirecTV said.