An amateur cartoonist who sued DreamWorks for allegedly infringing his copyright to create the 2008 animated film “Kung Fu Panda” has been sentenced to two years in prison.
Gordon was also ordered to pay more than $3 million in restitution.
Jayme Gordon of Massachusetts was sentenced on Wednesday, after being indicted on what prosecutors called a “fraud scheme” to score a multi-million settlement from DreamWorks.
Godron filed his suit in 2011, alleging that DreamWorks had committed copyright infringement by basing the characters and story of “Kung Fu Panda” on drawings and story ideas that he had submitted to DreamWorks in the 1990s.
However, Gordon’s indictment alleged, the cartoonist “fabricated and backdated drawings of characters similar to those in ‘Kung Fu Panda,’ lied repeatedly during his deposition, and destroyed relevant evidence that he was required to produce in civil discovery.”
“Gordon’s scheme failed, and he ultimately had to dismiss his civil suit, when DreamWorks discovered that some of what Gordon claimed were his original panda drawings from the early 1990s were, in fact, traced from a Disney coloring book published in 1996,” the indictment added.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.