November 4, 200421 yr WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A North Carolina man was sentenced to nine years in prison for sending hundreds of thousands of "spam" e-mail messages, Virginia prosecutors said oÂn Wednesday. Jeremy Jaynes, of Raleigh, North Carolina was found guilty under a state law that sets limits oÂn the number of e-mails marketers can send in a given time period and prohibits them from using fake e-mail addresses, state Virginia State Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said. Jaynes' sister, Jessica DeGroot, was also found guilty and fined $7,500, Kilgore said. An associate, Richard Rutkowski, was found not guilty. Jaynes, who used the alias Gaven Stubberfield, was ranked by the watchdog group Spamhaus as the eighth-most prolific spammer in the world when he was arrested last December. The messages sent out by Jaynes advertised penny stocks, low mortgage rates and software to erase Internet browsing records, Virginia officials said. Jaynes sent out more than 100,000 such messages over a 30-day period in July and August 2003 in violation of state law, according to the charges. DeGroot was convicted after prosecutors proved she used her credit card to help out the operation. "This is a major victory for Virginians and all Americans," Kilgore said in a statement. Jaynes' attorney was not immediately available for comment. Though both lived in North Carolina, Virginia asserted jurisdiction because they sent messages through server computers located in the state. Roughly 50 percent of the world's Internet traffic passes through Virginia, home to big Internet companies like MCI Inc. (Nasdaq:MCIP - news) and Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX - news) America oÂnline unit. Many forms of spam are also illegal under a national law that took effect in January. LOL. he got his just desert. good thing everyone of mine and shotty and paras posts dont send emails....... o wait...... they do...... -G
November 4, 200421 yr Don't know if I should laugh or cry after reading this.9 years is more than some murderers/rapists get...
November 4, 200421 yr Don't know if I should laugh or cry after reading this. 9 years is more than some murderers/rapists get... true this means they should up the years for murderers/rapists! anyway, I can see this guy, going into this state, and not knowing it was against the state law, and then getting arrested with that dumb-founded look on his face like, "WTF!?!"
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