The Briskman family lives in a contemporary two-story house with double bay windows in a tree-lined subdivision in Pikesville near the Park School. The lawn is mowed. And the flower beds are well tended.
But in the basement - where other people keep holiday decorations and the washer and dryer - the Briskmans, authorities allege, operated an "assembly line," altering scores of set-top television boxes to cheat cable TV providers.
Father, mother and daughter have been charged as cable pirates and are scheduled to be arraigned next month in Baltimore County Circuit Court.
A son has been charged as a juvenile.
The prosecution of a family is unusual, investigators say. But the alleged offense is not. Police in Baltimore County and other metropolitan area jurisdictions served by Comcast have joined with private detectives hired by the company on hundreds of investigations to root out cable fraud.
Cable boxes can be altered by inserting computer chips that find cable frequencies and defeat the cable company's encryption of its broadcast signals. A reset button is also installed in the rear of the box.
The boxes are sold on the Internet and advertised in specialty magazines. Others are distributed through what investigators call "friends and family" networks. The boxes can go for as much as $200 on the black market, investigators say.
In addition to participating in the joint investigations, Comcast Cable recently started scrambling its signals about every 30 minutes, making illegal boxes more inconvenient to use because they must be manually reset more frequently. Previously, broadcast signals were scrambled, or rotated, about once a month and before big pay-per-view performances, such as championship boxing matches.
"Rotating the signals is part of our defense," said Doug Sansom, a Comcast executive who has served as general manager for the Baltimore metropolitan service area. He estimates that more than 30,000 families receive stolen cable signals in the Baltimore area.
Costs to company
Theft costs the company about $14 million in revenue annually, Sansom said. Local governments, including Anne Arundel, Howard, Harford and Baltimore counties and Baltimore City, lose about $700,000 annually in franchise fees and taxes.
"Taxpayers make up the difference," said Sansom. "This isn't a victimless crime."
During a recent audit of a Comcast connection box in Towson, investigators found that three of the 13 rowhouses connected to the system weren't Comcast customers.
"It could be a full-time job for us," said Cpl. David P. Trivett, who works in the Baltimore County police economic crimes unit. "About one in every two or three search warrants we do, whether it's for drugs or some other crime, we'll find an illegal cable box. We find them in extravagant houses, too. It runs the gamut."
Stickers warning that tampering with the box is illegal usually are left on altered boxes, Trivett said.
"What doesn't make any sense is that people are willing to risk being caught for a crime to save $30 a month," he added.
The investigation
Comcast investigators say they were led to the Briskmans by advertisements for cable boxes on eBay, the online auction site, in late July. The boxes were being sold by a company known as "BESTSTORE4YOU" for $43.
Company incorporation records say the business was established to sell auto parts on the "World Wide Web and through other channels." Izabela Briskman is listed as the corporation's director.
Investigators from Castle Security Group, a private company, tried to arrange a meeting to pick up a descrambler, but the company refused, according to court charging documents. The company instead asked them to send a money order to Alex Briskman on Verbena Road in Pikesville.
The detectives received the cable box in August. They tested the converter and found that it neutralized Comcast's encryption signal. They were even able to view pay-per-view movies, according to court documents.
Search of house
During a search of the Briskmans' house in August, county police said, they found two altered cable boxes that enabled the family to receive cable programming for free - one in the son's bedroom and another in the living room, court documents say.
In the basement, police said they found stacks of cable boxes that were being altered near a workstation with cutting tools and soldering irons. "It was an assembly line," said Raymond Leard, one of the investigators.
A total of 164 cable boxes had been converted with chips. An additional 327 boxes were in their original form. Investigators said the boxes were initially purchased from a cable company in Georgia and were shipped to the Briskmans' house.
Izabela Briskman, 44, and her 20-year-old daughter, Alex, were home during the search but declined to be interviewed at length by police and asked to speak with a lawyer, investigators said. They, along with the father, Arkadi Briskman, 45, have since been charged with felony theft and cable fraud. The 17-year-old son has been charged as a juvenile in the case, investigators said.
Arkadi Briskman answered the door last week at the family's home but declined to comment on the charges.
Legal avenues
Cable officials acknowledge that sometimes people unintentionally receive cable service for which they haven't paid. That's one reason the company occasionally offers "amnesty periods" for cable viewers to subscribe to the service they're receiving. Comcast also might allow people who have paid for illegal cable connections to pay restitution rather than go to court.
But the third time an illegal connection is documented at a home, the company will seek to have charges filed. Although many violators are given probation before judgment, they are generally ordered to pay restitution, investigators say.
Investigators also say, however, that it's not unusual for people accused of stealing cable to illegally reconnect to the system between the time they're cited and their court date.