Over at Gamasutra, we ran a story on video game piracy back in January 2006: "Two Hollywood video game store owners and a third man who were charged in December for allegedly pirating video games and installing them on modified Microsoft Corp. Xbox consoles were indicted on Thursday, according to the United States Attorney's Office in Los Angeles."

Well, now LAist has a post about one of the convicted, Jason Jones, who "...was pinched by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who raided his store wearing full body armor and brandishing shotguns because Jones was suspected of selling “modded” Microsoft Xboxes that played pirated games."

He got 6 months of probation, and "His current home is The Vinewood, a Hollywood halfway house for federal cons about to transition back to civilian life", and apparently, his fellow probationees are a bunch of bank robbers: "There’s one other white collar guy. He’s in here for medical fraud. An Armenian dude."

Jones further explains: "I’m running an antique store on La Brea until I get out, then I’ll go back to video games. I can’t be involved in video games because that’s my crime. Everyone in the house is allowed a television and a Playstation except me! They consider that a part of my crime, like I’m gonna be in a halfway house modding Playstations." This is... deeply strange. [Via Stay Free!, though Looky Touchy had it too.]