Arrest of Omi in a Hellcat

Last updated

Omi in a Hellcat
Personal information
Born
Bill Omar Carrasquillo

(1986-09-06) September 6, 1986 (age 38)
YouTube information
Channel
Subscribers819,000 [1]
Total views65 million [1]
YouTube Silver Play Button 2.svg100,000 subscribers2019 [2]
Last updated: December 2023

Bill Omar Carrasquillo (born September 6, 1986), known professionally as Omi in a Hellcat (stylized in all caps), is an American YouTuber who was sentenced to five and a half years of prison and fined US$30,000,000 [3] on charges of conspiracy, copyright infringement, fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion over a cable television piracy scheme. [4]

Contents

Background

Bill Omar Carrasquillo was born to Julio Carrasquillo and Soledad Diaz on September 6, 1986. [5] He was raised in North Philadelphia. His mother, Soledad, died of a drug overdose while he was a child. His father, Julio, was a drug dealer who taught him to cook crack cocaine at the age of 12. He went between the care of relatives, foster parents, and his father. He said he was once sent to a mental health institution for his guardian to gain access to prescription narcotics to sell. He became a drug dealer as a teenager and continued selling drugs until his late 20s. [3]

After he gave up drug dealing, he started a business in 2016 with partners Jesse Gonzales from California and Michael Barone from New York which offered subscribers content from Comcast, Verizon FiOS, DirectTV, and HBO for as low as US$15 a month. According to federal authorities, they bought encoders from China which removed copyright protections from legitimate cable subscriptions, then used these to stream the content online. [6] Before being shut down in 2019, the service had 100,000 subscribers and generated US$34,000,000 in revenue. [3]

He created a YouTube channel named Omi in a Hellcat (stylized in all caps). The channel features videos showing off his jewelry, [3] his home in Swedesboro, New Jersey (which was formerly owned by professional baseball player Jimmy Rollins), [7] and his collection of 57 automobiles. [3] His collection included three Dodge Hellcats and four Lamborghinis, including a Power Rangers-themed one. [8] As of December 2023, the channel had 819,000 subscribers and 65 million views. [1]

Arrest

Carrasquillo's home was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the morning of November 27, 2019, seizing his cars, jewelry, computers, SD cards, televisions and the money in his bank account. [7] He was then indicted by the FBI on September 21, 2021, on 62 counts, including 19 counts of public performance of a protected work and six counts of wire fraud. Facing 514 years in federal prison, he initially maintained his innocence:

I don’t think I ever did anything wrong. Obviously, I was running businesses wide open in the public. Now, we are going to have our day in court[...]I found a loophole, I ran through it and I did great. There is[ sic ] other colleagues in the same business I was in and they never got in trouble with the FBI[...] [9]

— Omi in a Hellcat (2021)

He pled guilty in February 2022 [10] and was sentenced to five and a half years of prison and fined US$30,000,000 on March 8, 2023 [3] on charges of conspiracy, copyright infringement, fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. [4] His cars were auctioned off by United States Marshals at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore on October 13 [11] and his jewelry auctioned online, with the auction ending October 24. [12]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "About OMI IN A HELLCAT". YouTube.
  2. ↑ "RIDING BIKES IN ORLANDO TO CELEBRATE 100,000 SUBSCRIBERS". June 12, 2019. Archived from the original on November 10, 2023. Retrieved October 13, 2023– via YouTube.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Madej, Patricia; Roebuck, Jeremy (March 8, 2023). "What to know about the cable piracy case against popular YouTuber 'Omi in a Hellcat'". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Archived from the original on October 14, 2023. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  4. 1 2 St. Jawnson, Kershaw (March 15, 2023). "Omi In A Hell Cat Gets Five Years In Prison And Gives Up $30M In Assets To Feds". AllHipHop . Archived from the original on October 14, 2023. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  5. ↑ "Bill Omar speaks on importance of authentic content for success as Youtuber". Deccan Chronicle . October 19, 2019. Archived from the original on November 10, 2023. Retrieved November 10, 2023.
  6. ↑ DeMarco, Jerry (September 23, 2021). "Feds Bust NJ YouTuber In Multi-Million-Dollar TV Pirating Ring". Gloucester Daily Voice. Archived from the original on October 14, 2023. Retrieved October 14, 2023.
  7. 1 2 "FBI raids millionaire YouTuber's Swedesboro home, seizes belongings". FOX 29 Philadelphia. November 28, 2019. Archived from the original on October 14, 2023. Retrieved October 14, 2023.
  8. ↑ Sottile, Zoe (October 8, 2023). "US Marshals to auction off multimillion dollar car collection seized from YouTuber 'Omi in a Hellcat'". CNN . Archived from the original on October 13, 2023. Retrieved October 20, 2023.
  9. ↑ O'Connell, Chris (September 22, 2021). "YouTuber 'Omi in a Hellcat' speaks out after arrest in federal piracy case". FOX 29 Philadelphia . Archived from the original on October 14, 2023. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  10. ↑ Roebuck, Jeremy (February 15, 2022). "Local YouTube star pleads guilty in large-scale cable piracy case". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Archived from the original on October 14, 2023. Retrieved October 14, 2023.
  11. ↑ "Convicted YouTube star's seized car collection being auctioned off at B&O Railroad Museum". WMAR 2 News Baltimore. October 13, 2023. Archived from the original on October 14, 2023. Retrieved October 14, 2023.
  12. ↑ "US Marshals to auction off Eagles Super Bowl ring, luxury cars seized from South Jersey YouTuber". PhillyVoice. October 10, 2023. Archived from the original on October 14, 2023. Retrieved October 14, 2023.
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