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A federal jury in Boston convicted Jayme Gordon, 51, on four
counts of wire fraud and three counts of perjury after
prosecutors accused him of lying in a 2011 lawsuit against the
Hollywood studio, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts
said in a statement.
Prosecutors charged that Gordon back-dated drawings of a
high-kicking bear named Po in 2008 after seeing an early trailer
for the film, and then used them to try to extract a $12 million
settlement from DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.
Some of the drawings Gordon relied on had been traced from a
coloring book featuring Walt Disney Co characters from the 1994
film "The Lion King," prosecutors said.
Gordon agreed to dismiss his lawsuit after DreamWorks, which
also produced the "Madagascar" and "How to Train Your Dragon"
films, discovered the tracing. By that time, though, the company
had spent $3 million defending itself against the litigation.
Gordon faces 20 years in prison for the wire fraud charges and
five years for the perjury charges.
Gordon's attorney was not immediately available for comment.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Tom
Hogue)
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