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back to article Kim Dotcom Dotcan remain on bail, despite Fed protests

The US Feds have failed to get Kim Dotcom’s bail revoked ahead of the extradition hearing in New Zealand to decide if he will have to go stateside to face online piracy charges. The Megaupload founder has avoided awaiting the hearing in jail as an Auckland court has rejected the idea that he might be a flight risk, as well as …

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  1. Khaptain Silver badge

    Jail time or the highlands would have been better

    >My legal team has recently resigned because I ran out of money after spending $10m to try and defend myself.

    If the guy went to jail for three years he would have saved $10 Million, $3Million per year is not too shabby.

    Alternatively, he could have bought a nice house in the Scottish highlands, called himself Douglas MacDougal, disappeared from public life and still had a lot of change left over.

    DotCom = minus 10 Million and nothing to show for it.

    The Lawyers = plus 10 Million , new Porsches or have upgraded to >20m yachts.

    6 2 Reply
    1. SolidSquid
      Reply Icon

      Re: Jail time or the highlands would have been better

      Not sure where the 3 year sentence went, but I suspect there's going to be some pretty massive fines into the bargain regardless. Also a criminal record might impact his residency in New Zealand

      3 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Jail time or the highlands would have been better

        >Also a criminal record might impact his residency in New Zealand

        not as much as being broke; IIRC he had a criminal record before coming to NZ, but they waived their 'good character' requirements when he promised to invest $10M

        1 0 Reply
        1. Mark 85
          Reply Icon

          Re: Jail time or the highlands would have been better

          Well, he did invest the money.. if lawyers can be called an investment.

          1 0 Reply
          1. Khaptain Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Jail time or the highlands would have been better

            > if lawyers can be called an investment.

            Bottomless pit might be a better definition

            1 0 Reply
    2. FartingHippo
      Reply Icon
      Childcatcher

      Re: Jail time or the highlands would have been better

      "nothing to show for it"

      He's not picking up soap in a US penitentiary. Also, I suspect he'll be looking a serving a dime or more (I watched all of The Sopranos, you know. Boom, bad-a-bing, etc, etc). The US authorities will want serious payback after being embarressed like this. Just look at poor Bradley/Chelsea Manning :(

      Icon is Kim after 6 months of prison food.

      7 1 Reply
      1. Shady
        Reply Icon
        Mushroom

        Re: Jail time or the highlands would have been better

        Now be honest - if there ever was an inmate that all the other cons would avoid whilst he was picking up the soap.....

        Icon is Kim after six hours of prison food

        0 0 Reply
  2. Omgwtfbbqtime
    Black Helicopters

    No longer allowed to travel by helicopter

    Just as well as he says he is broke.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Cliff
      Reply Icon

      Re: No longer allowed to travel by helicopter

      There's also not a heap of places you can get to by chopper from NZ - or carry enough fuel to reach at least

      2 1 Reply
      1. Mark 85
        Reply Icon

        Re: No longer allowed to travel by helicopter

        Does Ecuador have an embassy there with a spare couch?

        1 0 Reply
        1. Cliff
          Reply Icon

          Re: No longer allowed to travel by helicopter

          Out of interest, downvoter, how many places can you get to on a tank of fuel in a chopper from any location you care to name in NZ? Lovely country and all that, just not in the heart of things, especially in what are very versatile but rather fuel-intensive vehicles optimised for short range.

          1 0 Reply
      2. Bitbeisser
        Reply Icon

        Re: No longer allowed to travel by helicopter

        Well, a chopper will get you at least onto a ship floating in international waters...

        0 0 Reply
    2. Shady
      Reply Icon

      Re: No longer allowed to travel by helicopter

      He's got a transport problem, he's too broke too eat......

      ...is the local Domino's hiring?

      0 0 Reply
  3. LucreLout

    Hmmmmm

    I'm not sure anyone previously worth USD 10M ever really goes broke, at least not broke as in how I think of as broke.

    9 0 Reply
    1. Gordon 10
      Reply Icon
      WTF?

      Re: Hmmmmm

      Indeed how can he be "broke" if he has use of a mansion or a helicopter?

      4 1 Reply
      1. beep54
        Reply Icon

        Re: Hmmmmm

        "Indeed how can he be "broke" if he has use of a mansion or a helicopter?"

        Well, there's 'broke' in the sense of the Clinton's use of the word, and then there's 'broke' in the sense that the rest of us understand it.

        1 0 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Big Business

    In 100 years time, this is the sort of thing people will look back on and shake their heads in wonder and disgust. That big business of another country can effectively pay for their own private government hit squad to take down a business rival and put them through a kangaroo legal system to bleed them dry, while everybody looks on as though it's acceptable behaviour.

    This sounds like something that only happens to bar owners in Thailand beach resorts.

    Good 'ol Uncle Sam and his boys.

    16 3 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Big Business

      "A business rival"?

      The "business rival" whose business amassed $150m by ripping off the people who did their work. Kim Dotcom rewarded thieves who uploaded pirate movies or music but didn't pay a cent to people who made movies or music.

      I guess you will be shedding a tear for the good ol' boys who run sweatshops or human trafficking rings.

      5 14 Reply
    2. asdf
      Reply Icon

      Re: Big Business

      >In 100 years time, this is the sort of thing people will look back on and shake their heads in wonder and disgust.

      Are you referring to virtually everything the US government has done since 9/11?

      7 0 Reply
  5. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Obscene

    No matter what you might think of Dotcom, the US legal system has proved beyond the slightest shadow of doubt that it is an arrogant, predatory, vengefull tyrany, totally subservient to a surprisingly small corporate group.

    16 1 Reply
    1. asdf
      Reply Icon

      Re: Obscene

      Sadly its not only the US legal system. Its just more obvious about it.

      5 0 Reply
    2. ecofeco Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Obscene

      For some reason I was just suddenly seeing parallels with the East India Company and what that led to.

      "Folly, thy name is empire." - Anon

      "But it's different this time!" - Heard just before the recent Great U.S. Recession

      Kim ain't no angel, but this has gotten ridiculous.

      2 0 Reply
  6. Oh Homer
    Pirate

    Hypocrisy

    While I have no sympathy for a supposedly "broke" person living in a huge mansion (why not just sell it?), the fact is that the totality of his "crimes" was to offer a storage service, which other people used to store allegedly "infringing" material.

    So why are the MAFIAA® and its US government lackeys shooting the messenger, instead of the shooting the many respective authors of the supposedly "infringing" messages?

    And why have they not similarly persecuted Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and friends for committing the same "crime"? Are we seriously expected to believe that not a single file on any of their Cloud services is in violation of copyright? That seems barely credible.

    The answer, and the actual "crime" which Dotcom seems guilt of, is that he spectacularly failed to be an American corporation stuffing big wads of greasy cash into the pockets of bent politicians, a crime for which he should clearly be crucified, according to America's finest.

    17 2 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hypocrisy

      "While I have no sympathy for a supposedly "broke" person living in a huge mansion (why not just sell it?)"

      Thought I read elsewhere that the mansion is rented (where's the dosh coming from for that?), so it looks like that avenue is closed.

      Have to say I agree with others. Dotcom might be an alleged villain (for all we know) but he has been ridden over extremely rough-shod by the NZ legal system that seems to be the lackie of "Big Entertainment" in the good ol' U.S. of A. So many discrepancies in the way that things have been handled (again - allegedly) seem to point to corruption and breaking of so many legal rules that I would say that the extradition case should be thrown out.

      9 0 Reply
    2. kiwi13
      Reply Icon

      Re: Hypocrisy

      He doesn't own the mansion, he rents it. But if he's broke I don't know how he pays the rent

      1 0 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's the big deal?

    He's gonna be convicted for copyright violations so he might as well enjoy his last days of freedom. If he decides to use his helicopter to escape prosecution, just shoot it down. That will save everyone a lot of headaches.

    1 8 Reply
    1. OzBob
      Reply Icon

      Re: What's the big deal?

      Shoot it down with what? There is no combat wing in the NZ airforce, the skyhawks were mothballed in 2002, the closest we have is a Stuka and a Hurricane that Peter Jackson (the lord of the rings guy) has in the South Island.

      http://www.omaka.org.nz/

      0 0 Reply
      1. Oninoshiko
        Reply Icon

        Re: What's the big deal?

        Why would NZ shoot him down anyway?

        Clearly the US would do it.

        0 0 Reply
  8. Gis Bun

    Oh poor guy. He's broke. Nice squandering away his money like some celebrities do - but he isn't one. Just a buffoon with a dumb name.

    1 2 Reply
    1. Rainer
      Reply Icon

      His motto has always been: "Earn big, spend even bigger". He's been doing that for 20-odd years or so. When I started working, he had just sold his IT-security startup for a ridiculous sum (immediately before the Dot Com bubble bust). Then came a couple of other stunts, including the insider-trading gig that is the reason for his criminal record, which is AFAIK the reason he couldn't get citizenship in NZ...

      Most "celebrities" are completely useless in every aspect of life except for maybe showing otherwise covered parts of their body in front of camera-lenses.

      So, I actually have to give him the benefit of doubt here in that he has actually made something of his life....

      1 0 Reply
      1. asdf
        Reply Icon

        >So, I actually have to give him the benefit of doubt here in that he has actually made something of his life....

        Yeah you don't get to the top of the leader board of CoD wasting time, oh wait ...

        He may be a fat ethically challenged slob but somehow the US government is even making him look sympathetic.

        4 0 Reply
  9. GrumpyKiwi

    He blew about $4 million on funding a political party with the explicit goal of preventing his deportation. A bunch of left-wing political mercenaries showed up, drank all his money and didn't get elected - even in a country where you need only 5% of the vote to get elected.

    More was blown on launching the lamest album of the past 20 years.

    The rest of his cash is in trusts or held by his ex-wife who (conveniently) divorced him as soon as it was hinted that the government et. al. might be going after his money.

    This would all have been over and done with and Dotcom in the US on trial if only our dozy police and prosecutions services had paid more attention to doing the paperwork properly and less to looking cool and using a black helicopter to do a raid and get them on TV.

    0 0 Reply
  10. Jay 2

    Just like Assange, Dotcom is just a self-publicising waste of space. As well as the insider trading, he also crashed a car at the end of the Gumball Rally (when it finished in Beaulieu) and did a runner pretty sharpish before the police caught up with him, as I seem to recall there was another (non-rally competitor) car involved. Also like Assange, he was only trying the politics thing to try and escape potential custodial problems.

    We can only dream that they both get locked up locally for a while, if only so we don't have to keep hearing them banging on that the US is out to get them. The US probably is out to get them one way or another either via dodgy extradition methods or just grinding them (and their bank accounts) down. But in both cases they've poked a nasty beast with a stick, made a song and dance about it, and then got a bit upset when said beast gives them its attention...

    As for his mansion in NZ, he paid the rent up front. So he's good for a few more months.

    0 4 Reply

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