[ACTU] Le 8e plus gros spammeur au monde condamné à 9 ans de prison

Internet spammer who made $24.000.000 is jailed for nine years
By Philip Sherwell in Washington
(Filed: 10/04/2005)

An American internet spammer has been sentenced to nine years in prison for sending millions of unsolicited e-mails after a ground-breaking court case which exposed the high income to be made from the trade.

Jeremy Jaynes, 30, became the first spammer to be prosecuted for a serious crime, or felony, under new legislation. The multi-millionaire "modern-day snake-oil salesman", as the prosecution dubbed him, was considered the eighth most prolific spammer in the world, churning out up to 10 million e-mails a day from a nondescript house in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Jaynes, who is married, banked up to $750,000 (£398,000) a month from his e-mails, which peddled pornography, fake products and services, and promoted work-at-home schemes, prosecutors said. He bought two homes, paying more than $1million for a 5,800 sq ft property, a steak restaurant, and invested in a chain of gyms.

A chastened Jaynes, who is out on bail of $1 million while an appeal against his sentence is heard, told Judge Thomas Horne that regardless of how the legal proceedings turned out, "I can guarantee the court I will not be involved in the e-mail marketing business again".

The case offered a revealing insight into the world of spamming. Prosecutors believe Jaynes amassed up to $24 million, even though they estimated that he made money on perhaps only one of every 30,000 e-mails.

He dispatched so many e-mails, using addresses from a list apparently stolen from America Online (AOL), that he received between 10,000 and 17,000 credit card orders a month - each worth an average of $40. "When you're marketing to the world, there are enough idiots out there who will be suckered in," said Virginia's assistant attorney general Russell McGuire, who prosecuted Jaynes.

Judge Horne said the jury's recommended sentence reflected public sentiment about spamming and its "tremendous societal costs".

He delayed the start of Jaynes' jail term pending the appeal, saying that the new anti-spam law had constitutional ramifications.

Jaynes was convicted in November last year for using false internet addresses and aliases to send mass e-mail ads via an AOL server in Loudoun County, Virginia. Under Virginia law, sending unsolicited bulk e-mail is not a crime unless the sender masks his identity.

The jury also convicted Jaynes's sister, Jessica DeGroot, but recommended that she should be punished only with a $7,500 fine. Her conviction was later dismissed by the judge. A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski, was acquitted.

Ahhh!! ça, ça fait plaisir !!!!

tu m'étonnes que ça donne envie de spammer à mort..........

Il n'a tué personne mais a coûté très cher ... comme ceux qui détournent des fonds et sont aussi condamnés.

Pécuniairement, tu ne peux lui foutre une amende de 24 M$ ni reprendre tout ce qu'il a acheté (et grâce auquel il gagne encore du pognon).

Il existe en droit civil (français je précise!) un concept que l'on appelle la "répétition de l'indû" c'est-à-dire que l'on doit restituer ce qu'on a touché sans en avoir le droit!