US Marshals to auction off multimillion dollar car collection seized from YouTuber ‘Omi in a Hellcat’
By Zoe Sottile, CNN
(CNN) — A YouTuber’s Power-Rangers-themed Lamborghini, once the shining star of his extravagant car collection, is among 32 of his vehicles that will be sold at auction after the content creator was sentenced to five years in prison for fraud and other crimes.
Bill Omar Carrasquillo, better known by his YouTube handle “Omi in a Hellcat,” was sentenced in March to five and a half years in prison “for crimes arising from a wide-ranging criminal scheme that involved piracy of cable TV, access device fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of copyright infringement,” according to a news release from the US Marshals Service.
In addition to his prison sentence, Carrasquillo is also subject to a $30 million forfeiture money judgment and must pay $15 million in restitution, the agency said.
The Lamborghini Aventador, wrapped in Power Rangers imagery, is one of the flamboyant pieces among the lot. The ostentatious vehicle already reached a bid of $387,000.00 by Friday night.
The live auction, set for October 13, will include over 55 of Carrasquillo’s unique and luxury cars, motorcycles, ATVs and other vehicles. The in-person sale will take place at B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, although online bidding has already started.
Jewelry seized from Carrasquillo will also be sold in a separate online auction, according to the news release. The lot includes the massive diamond-studded pendant the YouTuber sported in many of his videos, featuring the words “Omi in a Hellcat” around a snarling cat icon.
A total of 57 vehicles are being sold by Apple Auctioneering Co. in coordination with the US Marshals Service. In addition to the Power Rangers Lamborghini, the lot also includes three other Lamborghinis, a Bentley, a Mercedes-Benz, four Jeeps, three Dodge Charger Hellcats and a number of ATVs and motorcycles.
On his YouTube channel, Carrasquillo documented his journey in the world of luxury cars, taking viewers with him as he purchased new vehicles or showed off his collection. His account boasts more than 818,000 subscribers and some of his videos have accumulated over a million views.
“I wanted to wrap this car like my childhood,” he said in a 2019 video about his Lamborghini Aventador.
According to a news release from the Justice Department, Carrasquillo and his co-defendants operated a “large-scale internet protocol television (IPTV) piracy scheme in which they fraudulently obtained cable television accounts and then resold copyrighted content to thousands of their own subscribers.”
The group earned more than $30 million through the scheme, says the department, which Carrasquillo used to buy a number of homes and luxury vehicles.
The-CNN-Wire
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