Security

New York Spammer to Serve a 2.5-Year Sentence

He also got a hefty fine

By George Craciun, Security News Editor

16th of July 2008, 14:05 GMT

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Brooklyn spammer gets more than 2 years in jail

A sentence has been issued in the case of the Brooklyn man who, for a period of seven days in 2005, from the 17th to the 23rd of August, managed to spam 1.2 million AOL users. The spammer's name is Adam Vitale, and he was handed 30 months of incarceration time, as well as having to pay AOL $180,000.

Judge Denny Chin had this to comment before issuing the sentence: "Spamming is serious criminal conduct; this is not a teenager engaging in child's play." Because Vitale had 22 previous convictions, the judge gave him a rather harsh sentence. Still, he should consider himself lucky because the maximum penalty would have been 11 years in jail and monetary punitive measures of $250,000. After he gets out of jail, Vitale will be closely supervised for a period of 3 years.

"Given the opportunity, I will never do anything like this again. I really am sorry," said Adam Vitale, age 27, moments before the judge issued the sentence.

How was Vitale caught? Well, it all started with him and his accomplice Todd Moeller wanting to make a quick buck. The two struck a deal to send out spam messages that would advertise a computer security program, and in return they would get half of all the profits generated by the sale of said program. The thing is that the person they struck the deal with was a government informant. In a record amount of time the two spammers managed to bypass AOL filters and deliver their message to more than a million users, but instead of lining their pockets, they ended up in jail.

Todd Moeller was also punished for his deeds; a court of law issued a 27-month sentence in November 2007.

It seems that Vitale is not a stranger to the crime world, as his 22 prior convictions attest. During the trial, the prosecution brought to light that Vitale had failed to pass several drug tests while he was out on bail, and that in August an underage girl filed an assault complaint against him. The defense attorney, David Touger stated that his client was nothing more than "a prolific spammer".

TAGS:

spam | US law | AOL | security

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