DATE: Saturday, July 19, 1997               TAG: 9707190295

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:  108 lines

STATE POLICE: BRONX MAN FOUND WITH 187 BOOTLEG VIDEOTAPES

Two days after ``Batman and Robin'' and ``Con Air'' started showing in movie theaters this summer, pirated copies were being sold on the streets of Chesapeake.

But not for long.

Chesapeake police swooped in and arrested Tracy Von Thompson, a 34-year-old man from the Bronx in New York. He was charged with two felony counts of fraud and released on bond.

That was in June.

On Tuesday night, Thompson was headed south again on Route 13 when state police stopped him for speeding, just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, according to Tammy Van Dame, a spokeswoman for the state police.

In the rental car he was driving, Van Dame said, state police found 187 pirated videotapes valued at $9,000. They included such summer hits as ``Contact,'' ``The Lost World: Jurassic Park,'' ``Men in Black'' and ``Con Air.''

Thompson was charged with two felonies: possession of audio visual tapes for the purpose of distribution, and possession for the purpose of sale without showing the name of the manufacturer, Van Dame said. Thompson also faces the possibility of additional charges for the possession of 14 adult videos, she said.

He was being held in the Northampton County Jail on Friday on $10,000 bond.

Thompson has had several convictions for video piracy in Hampton Roads. He was convicted in Portsmouth in February 1996 and sentenced to 12 months in jail, and again in Norfolk in February 1997, authorities said.

Thompson also was convicted on video piracy charges in Gloucester County, N.J., in spring of 1996, authorities said.

Video piracy is big business, costing motion picture companies more than $250 million a year in lost revenues, according to a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America Inc.

In addition to hurting the movie industry, the crime affects the economy by depriving municipalities, counties, states and the federal government of sales and business tax revenues they would have received from legitimate operators.

Chesapeake Detective Michael J. Fischetti recently caught up with Thompson at the Midway Trailer Park in Chesapeake, where Thompson allegedly sold residents hundreds of unauthorized copies of movies.

Fischetti and his partner, Detective W.H. Barber, were notified that Thompson was in the area by investigators for the Motion Picture Association of America.

Thompson's activities up and down the East Coast had been under surveillance for some time, but this is the first time such a case has been handled in Chesapeake, Fischetti said.

``The surprise was to find out it was such a big business,'' Fischetti said. ``I knew it was out there, but I didn't think it was this big. I didn't think people were making 50 to 100 copies of `Batman and Robin' and selling them.''

Thompson faces up to five years in prison on each count of fraud, Fischetti said.

In handling the case, Fischetti learned that authorities have raided labs where they have found as many as 400 VCRs simultaneously making copies, with laser printers churning out mass quantities of copies of box covers.

In some cases, the criminals who pirate movies make their copies by sitting in a theater with a hand-held camera, producing a very shaky and often off-center product, complete with background comments from movie-goers about the film or the popcorn, Fischetti said. Sometimes the tapes are inaudible.

Cardboard sleeves are duplicated on copying machines and folded into boxes. After the illegal videotapes are inserted, the boxes are heat-sealed in clear plastic - just like the real thing.

Robert W. Hunter, retired from the FBI, investigates video piracy in the area and led detectives to Thompson in the Chesapeake case. Hunter was the agent who, in 1985, arrested John A. Walker Jr., a spy who betrayed some of America's most sensitive military secrets to the Soviet Union.

Hunter and other retired law enforcement officials are under contract to the motion picture association to investigate cases of video bootlegging. In the course of his work, Hunter has gotten to know Thompson and describes him as cooperative, mild-mannered and nonchalant.

``We were already very familiar with Mr. Thompson,'' said Hunter, who has done this kind of work in more than a dozen cases since 1993.

Because he and other investigators for the association have no arrest powers, they point local authorities in the right direction and let them take over.

Video bootleggers can buy the phony videos for between $3.50 and $5, in the country's counterfeit manufacturing centers - currently New York City and Philadelphia, Hunter said.

Sometimes the cruder versions of the movies contain cover pictures from newspaper ads. Other times, the movie covers may feature snapshots taken of movie posters - complete with the reflection of the person taking the picture.

Video piracy cases sometimes get lost in a court maze filled with violent crime.

``It's not viewed as a particularly bad act,'' Hunter said. ``Tracy Thompson may be sandwiched in between a murder case and a rape. But it's an economic crime. . . . It snowballs into a very significant loss.''

Since 1995, the motion picture association has helped law enforcement officials seize more than a million pirated videotapes in the United States, according to the association. They offer a reward of up to $15,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of people engaged in video piracy.

Since their anti-piracy program began, the association has investigated more than 30,000 cases of piracy and helped law enforcement in more than 7,000 raids. MEMO: To report suspected video piracy operations, call the

association's Anti-Piracy Hotline: 1-800-NO-COPYS (1-800-662-6797.) ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

Tracy Von Thompson KEYWORDS: BOOTLEG VIDEOTAPE MOVIE ARREST FRAUD

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