Suspected DVD Bootleggers Arrested

It's not easy for a new DVD retailer to stay in business these days–especially when authorities say that retailer is a pair of young men selling pirated movies.

Two men were arrested last week after authorities say they were found selling bootleg DVDs outside the 7-Eleven and AutoZone on Kiefer Boulevard.

Melvin Louis Anderson, 20, and Devante Monyett Brooks, 18, were arrested Friday afternoon and are currently being charged with misdemeanor violations of a law that makes it illegal to sell movies that don't credit the original manufacturer. Both were released from jail Wednesday but are due back in court Thursday.

According to a Sacramento County Sheriff's Department crime log, Anderson and Brooks were found with multiple bootleg DVD-Rs, and tried to dump them in a trash can when they saw deputies arriving.

"They were arrested without incident when it was clear that the movies were pirated," sheriff's department spokesman Dep. Jason Ramos said in an email.

Employees of the Kiefer Boulevard shopping center where the pair were arrested said the DVD peddling and other soliciting has been an ongoing problem.

"Every day they show up out here," AutoZone employee Mal Harrian said. "They're hassling customers."

Harrian pointed out the window to a shirtless man with jeans pulled low over red basketball shorts, asking passersby for spare change.

He said employees there have called the sheriff's department repeatedly about the problems, but the people would usually be gone by the time deputies arrived.

Of the pair of arrestees, at least one has had other recent run-ins with the law.

According to county court records, Anderson is currently on probation for pleading no contest to a felony burglary charge last year.

On July 19, almost a month before his arrest, Anderson was served an official notice of trespass by 7-Eleven store manager Sarbjit Chahal; the notice lists a sheriff's department deputy as a witness.

"We see them over and over, every single day," Chahal said of the unwanted visitors. She said the solicitors and loiterers have also discouraged potential customers.

"They're scared of coming inside and they don't like to shop here [when the solicitors and loiterers are outside]," she said.

Ramos noted the sheriff's department has been called to the shopping center multiple times in recent months, but said repeated reductions in resources mean it's difficult for the department to be proactive in situations like this.

"We have largely been reduced to responding to calls for service on a reactive basis, so the prospects for 'turning this property around,' so to speak, are somewhat grim," he said.