Michael Kors is going after counterfeits – but instead of looking to the web, the fashion brand is taking on a notorious flea market. According to the complaint that counsel for Michael Kors filed in a federal court in Connecticut this week, C.G.C. Enterprises, Inc., Charles Cheslock, Digsny, Taylor & Hobbes, LLC, and Richard Lebov (“the defendants”) are on the hook for the operation of a New Haven, Connecticut flea market, one with a reputation for being a haven for illegal fashion knockoffs, including infringing and counterfeit Michael Kors products.
Counsel for Michael Kors alleges in the brand’s complaint that since the 1990s, the defendants have run The Boulevard, a sweeping flea market located less than 10 minutes from Yale University’s campus. Not only does the sale of counterfeit goods at The Boulevard date back “over 20 years,” so does the defendants’ knowledge of such sales, according to Kors, which points to the 1996 arrest and conviction of Boulevard-occupant Abdallah Saad Ibrahim for selling counterfeit goods at the flea market as proof.
Since then, the defendants, such as Cheslock, who is the president and owner of CGC, the company that runs the flea market, and Lebov, who is owner of the company that owns the land on which the flea market is located on… The Fashion Law