A Chula Vista man who admitted selling hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of counterfeit World Cup soccer jerseys over the Internet is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 17 in U.S. District Court in San Diego.
Clemente Leon, 37, admitted that in August 2013, about four months after he began importing soccer jerseys and other clothing from China, he received a Cease and Desist letter from Nike.
Leon acknowledged that after learning that the jerseys were counterfeit, he nonetheless continued to import them, and then placed bogus World Cup team patches and stencils with the names of World Cup players on the backs of the jerseys, working out of his garage in Chula Vista.
Leon admitted that he sold the jerseys bearing the unauthorized and counterfeit trademarks throughout the United States via his own website, www.playerasfutbol.com, and Amazon.com, and received payment through PayPal and other means. Leon agreed that the value of the counterfeit goods he sold was between $120,000 and $320,000.
As part of his plea, he agreed Friday to forfeit $50,000 from the sale of the counterfeit jerseys, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
—City News Service
