- Heidi Richards of Trinity Software Distribution fined $50,000 and sentenced to 22 months in prison
- Prosecutors wanted Richards to fork over $242,000 in profits
- Certificate of Authenticity labels are not to be sold separately.
A 52-year-old Florida resident was sentenced to 22 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine as a result of her ties to the e-commerce company Trinity Software Distribution.
A court found the company and Heidi Richards guilty of trafficking in Microsoft certificate of authenticity (COA) labels, which contained the product keys needed to activate Office software and Windows operating systems.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida noted that Richards “paid co-conspirators millions of dollars for thousands of genuine, stand-alone Microsoft COA labels at prices significantly lower than the retail price of the associated software.”
Jailed for reselling Microsoft COA labels
The indictment details how Richards purchased tens of thousands of genuine COA labels from a Texas-based supplier between 2018 and 2023 for well below retail value, before reselling them wholesale to customers around the world without the licensed software.
“COA labels should not be sold separately from the license and hardware they must accompany, and have no independent commercial value,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote.
Richards was discovered to have transferred $5,148,181.50 to the anonymous Texas company during the operation of the scheme. Some examples include purchasing 800 Windows 10 COA labels in July 2018 for $22,100 (less than $28 each) and another 10,000 Windows 10 Pro COA labels in December 2022 for $200,000 ($20 each).
Finally, with a fine of $50,000 and a sentence of almost two years, prosecutors had sought to make Richards pay $242,000, “representing the proceeds of the crimes.”
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