CABL Forum - "I never knew it was criminally illegal,"

Timothy Scott Simpson figured out a way to defeat cable television scramblers and made more than $1 million selling his idea over the Internet.

He used some of the money he made to buy a 2002 Porsche convertible and an $800,000, 2,400-square-foot house with a pool near the water in Villa Park Estate in St. Petersburg.

The problem is, what Simpson did is illegal.

Simpson, 44, of St. Petersburg, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Wednesday to mail fraud, a charge that carries a penalty of up to five years in federal prison.

"I never knew it was criminally illegal," Simpson told U.S. Magistrate Thomas Wilson during the court hearing. "I really didn't."

"You knew it would put people in the position of obtaining something they weren't paying for," the judge responded.

"Absolutely," Simpson said.

According to Simpson's plea agreement, from August 2000 to March 2003, Simpson modified cable boxes by wiring and gluing a small circuit board inside the tops. The change made the boxes "bulletproof," meaning cable providers couldn't program them using what is referred to as electronic bullets sent out over the cable system.

Customers using the bulletproof boxes were able to receive premium cable channels in addition to their regular cable service.

Simpson, who said he has an engineering degree, told the judge the boxes now are obsolete because they work only on analogue systems that receive just channels 1 through 99, and most cable companies now use digital signals.

Wilson was curious about what cable customers could get free when they used the boxes to enhance their service.

Simpson said the boxes did different things in different parts of the country, depending on the cable company.

In the Tampa area, he said, "it gave you basically everything," including all pay-per-view programming.

Simpson marketed and sold nine types of boxes through a Web site he operated, myboxx.com, for prices ranging from $139.99 to $249.99. According to his plea agreement, he sold nearly 8,000 of the boxes in 2001 and 2002.

Wilson wondered why the boxes sold for different prices.

Simpson said the boxes were the same inside but some looked nicer.

As part of his plea agreement, Simpson has to give the federal government the money he made selling the boxes.

He also has to give up the house and the Porsche.

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"I never knew it was criminally illegal,"