Baltimore Man Pleads Guilty in $4M Software Piracy Case

Naveed Sheikh could face up to five years in federal prison.

A Baltimore man faces up to five years in federal prison and millions of dollars in fines after pleading guilty Monday to distributing 1,000 copyrighted software programs, federal officials announced. In the plea agreement, Naveed Sheikh admitted conspiring to distribute more than 1,000 copies of software like Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, Quicken and various operating systems using several websites, server space in Scranton, PA and at a Bel Air home between February 2003 and April 2008. Sheikh allowed purchasers to either download the software or have it shipped to them. Sheikh informed customers that the software had been "cracked"—illegally circumventing copy protection, according to prosecutors. He accepted payments via a P.O. box …

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