A man accused of selling fake brand-name golf merchandise on internet auction site eBay has pleaded guilty at a hearing in a US court in North Carolina.

Warren Fondrie entered guilty pleas on more than a dozen counts of criminal use of a counterfeit trademark.

Fondrie's operation imported counterfeits of brand-name golf equipment, including ball markers and golf grips from Asia, and then sold them to domestic and international customers on a store site on eBay.

Following a two-month investigation in 2007, prosecutors charged charged Fondrie, his father, Donald Fondrie, and Pei-I Chou, a Taiwanese national for selling counterfeit goods.

The judge has given Fondrie a suspended sentence of between 60 and 80 months, and ordered that he pay $253,339 in restitution to the trademark owners in the case.

The two other defendants in are scheduled to go to trial later in the year.
                                                                                                     SOURCE:AGIPNEWS