Another Cable Thief Arrested

http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2003/11/17/daily48.html?jst=b

weitrhino


November 21, 2003
Catonsville man gets 18 months for stealing cable
Robert J. Terry
Staff
A Baltimore County District Court judge has sentenced a Catonsville man to
18 months in prison for stealing cable, Comcast Cable said Friday.

Gregory Leach, 27, was found guilty of possessing an altered cable box that
enabled him to thwart encryptions sent out by Comcast and receive services
he wasn't paying for, including premium channels and pay-per-view movies,
the cable giant said.

Baltimore County police found Leach with the altered cable box while
executing a search and seizure warrant.

Comcast works with law enforcement agencies on spotting and confiscating
illegal cable devices. The company has also fanned out a 50-person team of
technicians going door to door to match cable service with customer records.

Comcast Cable counts 800,000 customers in Maryland and Delaware, and the
company employs more than 2,000 people in the region.

"We encouraged everyone who was receiving cable illegally to take advantage
of our amnesty campaign and turn in their illegal equipment with no
questions asked," said Brian A. Lynch, area vice president and general
manager for Comcast's Baltimore metropolitan systems. "This individual is an
unfortunate example of what can happen when someone does not heed our
warnings and chooses to actively steal cable services."

Comcast says cable theft costs local governments and municipalities millions
of dollars in lost revenue annually and causes signal leakage that adversely
affects signal quality and other communications systems, including those
used by aircraft.

The National Cable Television Association estimates the cable industry loses
nearly $6.6 billion in revenues each year to cable theft.



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