"Billion E-mail $pammer" gets 7 years! Oh Happy Day...
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20040527162709990002&_mpc=n
ews%2e6
WASHINGTON (May 27) - A New York state man who sent out millions of "spam"
e-mails was sentenced to 3.5 to seven years in prison, the state attorney
general's office said on Thursday.
http://members.aol.com/agmliteforu/howard-carmack-heads-to-jail.jpg
Howard Carmack, known as the "Buffalo Spammer," received the maximum sentence
for 14 counts of identity theft and forgery, a spokesman for New York Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer said.
Carmack sent out hundreds of millions of bulk e-mail messages, flooding inboxes
and saddling Internet providers with millions of dollars in costs. But it was
his use of stolen identities and forged addresses that caused him to run afoul
of state prosecutors.
New York has no state laws specifically dealing with spam, according to the Web
site Spamlaws.com, and a national anti-spam law was not yet in place when
Carmack was arrested a year ago.
He was found guilty of violating state forgery and identity-theft laws in
April.
The forgery conviction fetched the longest sentence, while the other
convictions drew shorter sentences of one year to four years. All will be
served concurrently, Spitzer spokesman Brad Maione said.
Carmack could be out in 3.5 years should he behave in prison, Maione said.
Internet provider EarthLink Inc. won a $16.5 million judgment against Carmack
last year, and EarthLink officials testified in the criminal trial as well.
Carmack set up more than 300 false e-mail accounts to send 825 million e-mails,
starting in March 2002, EarthLink said in its lawsuit.
"We're satisfied that today's sentencing sends a strong message to spammers,
and EarthLink will continue to investigate spammers and work with law
enforcement," said EarthLink assistant general counsel Karen Cashion in a
statement.
Since Carmack's arrest, EarthLink and other large Internet providers like
America Online have cooperated with state authorities to track down rogue
marketers who flood their networks with billions of unwanted e-mails.
Internet providers have also invoked a variety of state and national laws to
sue hundreds of spammers on their own.
Unwanted bulk messages now account for roughly 83 percent of e-mail traffic,
according to filtering company Postini Inc.
05-27-04 17:49 EDT
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