A Provo senior citizen was thrown out of the local Cinemark cinema for having a cell phone in her pocket, as the cinema accused the elderly woman of trying to record the movie for piracy purposes.
The elderly woman and her husband were in the middle of the movie when the woman's husband had to leave. Before he went, he handed her an old style "brick, slider-type" phone, which she immediately put in her pocket.
This brief exchange was enough for someone to suspect the woman of bootlegging the movie, and the police was called. A Cinemark employee and two officers arrived and asked the woman to leave, which she did not fully understand as English is not her first language.
The elderly couple visits the cinema on a weekly basis, and uses the provided closed captioning service as a way to improve their English, according to the couple's son Enos Ledezma. It is possible cinema staff or another moviegoer might have confused the closed captioning device as recording equipment.
Cinemark has not issued a statement on the matter, and the police has not seen fit to investigate or charge mother Ledezma for any copyright related crimes.
The whole experience has left the son, Enos, unhappy at the way Cinemark has treated his mother.
"At the moment, I have no intention of going back to that Cinemark. I'd rather drive 45 minutes to the Megaplex," says Enos.
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