• By RICHARD BURGESS
• Advocate Acadiana bureau
• Published: Feb 27, 2008 - Page: 1BA

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LAFAYETTE — A Lafayette man was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay $44,699 in restitution for copying hundreds of illegal “bootleg” concert recordings that were distributed across the Gulf Coast.

William F. Pritchard Jr. pleaded guilty last year in a federal investigation that netted music store owners in Lafayette, New Orleans, Florida and Alabama, as well as a music wholesaler in Florida.

“This is serious business. It is illegal. Don’t let anyone tell you it is not,” U.S. District Judge Rebecca Doherty said.

Pritchard told the judge that he began making and trading bootleg recordings because he had a “passion” for music.

He said he started selling the recordings in the late 1990s when approached by David L. Hubbell, who at the time owned Toys Music Center in Lafayette.

“Mr. Hubbell told me this was a gray area and something I would not get in trouble for,” Pritchard said. “… This was the last place I thought I’d end up for this.”

Hubbell was sentenced to five years probation in 2006 after pleaded guilty in the case.

He was accused of selling Pritchard’s bootlegs in his own store and serving as the middleman between Pritchard and a large music wholesaler in Florida.

The judge ordered that Hubbell and Pritchard split $75,168 in restitution to the Recording Industry Association of America, a music industry trade group.

Pritchard also was ordered to pay another $7,115 to RIAA in connection with bootleg recordings he sold directly to Mushroom Records, a well-known independent music store near Tulane University in New Orleans.

The investigation began after federal agents seized several bootlegs recordings in a search of Mushroom Records in September 2000.

An employee there identified Pritchard as the source of most of the bootleg compact discs and told agents that Toys Music Center also dealt with Pritchard.

The case expanded to include a major music wholesaler in Florida that had bought Pritchard’s bootlegs through Hubbell and three out-of-state music stores that dealt with the Florida wholesaler.