Appeals Court Judges Sick Of Spam Too; Uphold Spammer Conviction

from the welcome-to-jail dept

Wed, Sep 6th 2006 2:21am — Mike Masnick

Last year, we were surprised that Jeremy Jaynes, admittedly one of the world's biggest spammers, received a nine-year prison sentence. While some form of punishment seemed reasonable (perhaps more for false advertising, than spam), nine years seemed excessive and silly. We'd much prefer forcing Jaynes to sit around deleting spam for a few years instead. Today, however, an appeals court upheld his conviction meaning he may finally begin the long, long sentence. The court specifically ruled that putting spammers in jail is "clearly not excessive." Perhaps it would be in the best interest of spammers to figure out how not to spam judges in the future.

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28 Comments

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JackR, 6 Sep 2006 @ 3:03am

spammer punishment
probably true that 9 years is a lot, but it's just so satisfying to see a spammer severely punished.
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Michael, 6 Sep 2006 @ 3:19am

Well, its better than the 20yr + sentences that have been handed out over marijuana...
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- Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2006 @ 3:43am
  
  Re:
  Consumption? or Dealing?
  
  Dealing is severely punished and rightfully so.
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  - Nick, 6 Sep 2006 @ 8:43am
    
    Moron
    I see you slept through your history classes on Prohibition. Thanks for the moronic comment.
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lisa, 6 Sep 2006 @ 3:20am

punishment
Don't feel too sorry for him. Read the whole story - Spamhaus considers him one of the worst (out of 10) in the world. Also, he committed fraud through his spam, netting him millions. What's worse is that the addresses he used were not legimately obtained through marketing lists or customer registrations - he stole his email database from AOL. Virginia, where he was convicted, is the home to AOL. No coincidence.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2006 @ 3:39am

in that case he was convicted, for theft among others things, not because of his spaming.
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Matt, 6 Sep 2006 @ 4:15am

It's more likely that his long sentence was as a result of fraud charges rather than the spam (or false advertising), in which case it's likely he'd be given a large sentence considering the amount of money he made. Recent accounting scandals in the US have seen larger sentences given out.
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PaulM, 6 Sep 2006 @ 4:19am

spamming wastes people's lives
although one single spam is negligible, it really does steal time from people's lives, and as such should be punished.

9 years? lets see, that's 3285 days, or 78840 hours or 4.7 million minutes.

if he sent out, say, 4.7 million spams, and each one took one minute to delete by the recipient, then it's a fair sentence.

chance are he sent out many more spams than that, the sentence was not enough!
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Ian, 6 Sep 2006 @ 4:43am

Not theft but spam
He wasn't convicted for theft but a law against sending more than a specific amount of spam messages in a day and using a fake e-mail address.

from. http://www.spamhaus.org/news.lasso?article=155
Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, North Carolina, a prolific spammer who operated using the alias 'Gaven Stubberfield' and was listed by Spamhaus' ROKSO database as being the 8th most prolific spammer in the world, has been convicted of spamming using deceptive routing information to hide the source. A Virginia court recommended Jaynes spend nine years in prison for sending hundreds of thousands of unwanted e-mail messages. Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said Jaynes was found guilty under a Virginia state law that prohibits e-mails marketers from sending more than a certain amount of spams within a given time frame and prohibits the use of fake e-mail addresses.

Jaynes' sister, Jessica DeGroot, was also found guilty and fined $7,500. An associate, Richard Rutkowski of eVictory Consulting (known to Spamhaus as being involved in "National Wealth Builders" spamming), was found not guilty.

A Loudoun County jury decided that Jeremy Jaynes, 30, and his sister Jessica DeGroot, 28 flooded tens of thousands of AOL email accounts with unsolicited email. The jury recommended that Jaynes spend nine years in prison and that DeGroot pay $7,500 in fines for violating Virginia's anti-spam law.

Although both Jaynes and DeGroot lived in North Carolina, Virginia asserted jurisdiction because they sent messages through server computers located in the state.
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DreadedOne509, 6 Sep 2006 @ 5:09am

A Minute Per Spam Sent...
For each spam sent, the sender should pay $1 and spend a minute in jail. If that number exceeds 10,000,000 then the sentence should be death by spam (the canned variety).

All revenue, real and otherwise should be confiscated and equally distributed among the victims.
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Joe, 6 Sep 2006 @ 5:42am

Death by Spam
I think they should invoke the death penalty, just kill him and get it over with.
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Joe, 6 Sep 2006 @ 5:42am

Death by Spam
I think they should invoke the death penalty, just kill him and get it over with.
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mike mccullough, 6 Sep 2006 @ 5:53am

He should have gotten 30 years w/no parole
SPAM is evil; there is no other way to treat evil than punishment.
If it were SPYWARE he should have been executed on national television.
We would never tolerate someone to come into a company's property and write graffitii on a wall!
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Evil_Bastard, 6 Sep 2006 @ 6:10am

yep
- break his spine, leave him in traffic. We HATE spam, therefore, we hate this tool and his sister. He got off easy.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2006 @ 6:25am

9 years for a few billion junk emails? hn, that sucks for him.
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MissingFrame, 6 Sep 2006 @ 6:52am

Spyware next?
I got undeletable crap on a computer that I and everyone else infected with it knows where it comes from and who's doing it, can we get those people next?
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- Wizard Prang, 6 Sep 2006 @ 7:04am
  
  That would be WGA perhaps?
  Good luck going after Microsoft :)
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Franssu, 6 Sep 2006 @ 7:13am

Slow, painful death
on national television. Just to set an example. People from the middle-ages knew how to make criminals think twice.
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Roger, 6 Sep 2006 @ 7:31am

Murder sentence
I just read about a man here in Colorado who was convicted of first degree murder and received an 8-12 year sentence. Now I hate spam as much as anyone, in fact possibly more, but getting equivalent time to a murderer? What message are we sending here? Is our valuable 2 minutes (if that) per day that we spend deleting the few messages that make it through the spam filter each day, worth the same as a human life? Is spam is seriously being treated as severely as one of the biblical sins? Thou shalt not send unsolicited emails? Those judges should go spend some time in prison and see what the time that they so liberally hand out is really like.
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- ebrke, 7 Sep 2006 @ 8:07am
  
  Re: Murder sentence
  The real crime is someone convicted of first degree murder getting a slap on the wrist. He deliberately (first degree) took someone's life--he should remain in prison for the remainder of his.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2006 @ 8:31am

I don't consider a 9-year jail sentence excessive for a major spammer.

I wouldn't consider a life sentence excessive.

I'd probably balk at the death penalty for spamming, but only because I oppose the death penalty anyway.
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Abby Normal, 6 Sep 2006 @ 9:14am

But wait...
Is his sister hot, smoking or otherwise? :-D
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Jo Mamma, 6 Sep 2006 @ 10:01am

Have him eat spam until he dies!
Agreed, give him a spoon and a room full of the foul stuff.

That'll learn him good...
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Spence, 6 Sep 2006 @ 12:47pm

SPAM
People between the ages of forty and eighty have extremelyLow rates.
It is your time toSave a fortune onTerm Life Insurance!
http://www.insurefinderabc.com
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doubledoh, 6 Sep 2006 @ 8:25pm

spam = free speech
I hate spam as much as the next guy, but it's still free speech. You can't make everything you don't like illegal unless you're willing to see some things you DO like become illegal too. Relying on the government to regulate and control things you don't like is a vicious and never ending cycle. Stop it!

I use gmail and I barely ever get any spam in my inbox The free market (Google) fixed my spam problem with ZERO govt help. Private enterprise and innovation fixed spam because there was a profit to be made doing it (gasp). If we left the spam problem for the government to "fix" I can gaurantee you that my penis would be 3 inchers longer right now, or at least it could be for the low low price of only 39.99!
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Roger, 7 Sep 2006 @ 6:02am

Worse than terrorism?
The following information regarding the jail sentences of terrorists comes from TRAC, a data research organization connected to Syracuse University, who has been studying a wide range of federal agencies and programs for more than 15 years.
"The typical sentences recently imposed on individuals considered to be international terrorists are not impressive. For all those convicted as a result of cases initiated in the two years after 9//11, for example, the median sentence -- half got more and half got less-- was 28 days. For those referrals that came in more recently -- through May 31, 2006 -- the median sentence was 20 days. For cases started in the two year period before the 9/11 attack, the typical sentence was much longer, 41 months."
Ok now seriously, 3 1/2 years for terrorism and 9 years for sending unsolicited emails? Something is wrong here.
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Mark, 26 Dec 2006 @ 1:55pm

lenient sentence for spammer
Spam is not "free speech." The prohibition against spam is not geared towards the content of the message. It is geared toward the invasive and abusive manner in which the message is conveyed. Spam results in the expenditure of time (necessary to differentiate from legitimate messages and spam and necessary to delete the spam) and forces changes in email addresses. Of course, problems are then caused by persons sending legitimate messages to obsolete addresses. This spammer send billions and billions of spam messages. He acquired a net worth of about twenty million dollars. How about forcing the little dirtbag to serve a minute for each spam message? Nine years is neither excessive nor silly. It's lenient. These little shits ought to be drawn and quartered. Their estates should be forfeited. They should be relentlessly hunted.
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jd, 29 Feb 2008 @ 12:42pm

etgds
that is ittttttttttttttttttttttttt
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