Almost a year after an alleged (& denied) RIAA bust, investigators apprehend brothers, Michael ‘DJ Big Mike’ Willcox ,33, of Danbury and Stephen Sabato, 21, of Sandy Hook, on music piracy charges.

The arrest affidavit details a lengthy surveillance of Michael Willcox, also known as “Big Mike” or “DJ Big Mike” and his half brother Stephen Sabato, and their respective homes on Stetson Place in Danbury and Washington Avenue in Sandy Hook.

The investigation began in Feburary of 2009 with the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that sent its own team of investigators to conduct a surveillance of a suspected “burner lab” at 27 Stetson Place in Danbury where pirated CDs were alleged being made and distributed, according to the affidavit.

A search warrant was then executed on the Steson Place home where Danbury police found about 3,500 disks suspected of containing pirated music and inserts to make about 40,000 items, according to the affidavit. Songs by Lil Wayne, Mya, The Dream and G Unit and other Universal artists were part of what was found, according to the affidavit.

Titles of the CDs that were seized included “Blue Label That was my joint,” “Hard Knock Life,” “New York Struggle,” R&B Jump Off 50,” “Red Apples Falling” and “Trapaholics.”

Meanwhile, RIAA continued its surveillance through July of 2009 where its investigators said they allegedly followed Sabato to an establishment in Stamford and later purchased CDs for $5 that were determined to be pirated music, according to the affidavit.

Later, Newtown police execute a search warrant on the Sabato residence at 18 Washington Ave. where they found 383 CDs with pirated music and boxes that were labeled to contain burner towers, according to the affidavit.

While police were executing the search warrant, an investigator with RIAA was keeping a surveillance on Willcox’s Danbury home where she allegedly observed them quickly loading brown boxes into a car and then bringing them to an apartment in Bethel, according to the affidavit. Later they allegedly were seen throwing out CD disk inserts, the affidavit said.

A search warrant then was executed on the 32 Durant Ave., Bethel home where hundreds of CD-Rs and several thousand disc jacket inserts were found, the affidavit said.

A Newtown police officer also apparently reported a conversation he had with Sabato and another man in 2008 where the two said they spent a lot of time burning CDs on behalf of Willcox. The report said that Willcox mixes 10 songs every month onto a CD, which costs $.20 to make but is sold at $3 each, netting about $30,000 a month.

Sabato is out on a $1,000 bond and is to appear Wednesday, June 15 while Willcox was released on a promise to appear June 21.

More arrests are expected, according to officials and an affidavit, which was filed in state Superior Court in Danbury and made available Monday. The two brothers and their representatives could not be reached for comment Monday.

Source