Wiseguys Want Case Dismissed

Lawyers for a group of men indicted in March over charges they used high-tech programs to speed through ticketing websites and purchase more than 1 million tickets want the case dismissed.

In federal court in Newark, N.J., Sept. 27, an attorney representing the founder of Wiseguy Tickets argued that while the men may have violated the terms of service on websites of companies including Ticketmaster and Major League Baseball, they did not break federal laws.

“It is a creative indictment,” attorney Mark Rush told U.S. District Judge Katharine Hayden, according to Newark’s Star-Ledger.

However, U.S. attorneys arguing the case say Wiseguy Tickets committed fraud and allege the proof can be found in the hundreds of e-mail addresses and thousands of IP addresses used to conceal that the company was scoring boatloads of tickets.

“Each and every step of the way they lied,” attorney Erez Liebermann said in court.

The company has been charged on 43 counts. The government alleges Wiseguy worked with programmers in Bulgaria to create a network of computers able to flood ticket sites’ computers during onsales, using bots to speed through CAPTCHA challenges.

Wiseguy Tickets reportedly made $29 million in profits reselling tickets at a mark-up to brokers between 2002 and 2009. If convicted, the men could face up to 20 years in prison.