Court documents detailing the sentencing of Nintendo game pirate Gary Bowser have shed new light on how his 40-month sentence was designed to deter others from similar crimes.
Back in February, Bowser was told he would serve 40 months behind bars – more than three years – after pleading guilty to his part in the distribution and sale of piracy-enabling devices.
Now, newly-detailed documentation dug up by Axios and Kotaku has revealed how Nintendo’s lawyers and US district judge Robert Lasnik discussed Bowser’s jail time as a means to set an example – even as Bowser’s own lawyers argued his physical health was at risk, and argued that Bowser had already spent 16 months locked up awaiting trial.
Bowser’s lawyers noted how their client had lost 90 pounds while in prison as he had been unable to seek treatment for a leg condition which required regular treatment and had left him in a wheelchair.
“This is a picture of a typical cell at the detention center at SeaTac,” Bowser’s lawyer explained to the judge. “Two people live in this space. I showed this to Mr. Bowser this morning – because this is not his cell – and he said, ‘Well, you know, I’m in a somewhat special cell. Mine is about 18-inches wider because it’s a special cell to accommodate the wheelchair that I was using much of the time, and I get the bottom bunk because of my problem.’ But there are two people here. For six months of the last 16 months, he has been locked in this sized cell, plus 18 inches, for at least 23 hours a day. During the height of Covid, they only let people out every three days to go out to take a shower for maybe a half an hour and come back.”