101 years in prison for Spamming!

A man from Los Angeles has been criminally convicted of spam e-mailing  and could face a sentence of up to 101 years in prison. He is the first person to be convicted of such a crime in the U.S. Forty-five year old Jeffery Goodin was found guilty of running a running scam that fooled users into giving out personal information. E-mails that Goodin sent out made users believe that they were cooperating with a legitimate business when in fact they were not.

Goodin is convicted under the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act, which makes it illegal for marketers to send out false or misleading information to users. Goodin sent millions of these e-mails over the course of his spam career. The CAN-SPAM Act also dictates that legitimate e-mails such as newsletters and advertisements must feature a way for recipients to remove themselves from the mailing list.

Prosecutors provided evidence to a jury that Goodin also compromised AOL accounts to send out e-mail to users. Goodin's spam made it appear like his e-mails were being sent from AOL's billing department and told users that if they did not update their information via a website, their accounts would be closed.

Goodin is being convicted of spam, and ten other counts that include wire fraud and unauthorized access to AOL accounts and company trademarks for illegal purposes. He is to be sentenced on June 11th of 2007 and faces up to 101 years in prison.

            i would expect that these years would actually be completed in less time due to the scentences being served consecutively.   eg. spending 10 years in jail for 10 different crimes, you only spend 10 years in jail but in a sense you served 100 years.

             spamming a fraud like this deserves severe punishment.  it seems like one of the crimes that people would quit doing very quickly once they realized how badly it could end for them.

Maybe he will have to work in the prison kitchen opening cans of packaged meat products for a decade or so....

It's  time our laws started to  provide more serious punishment.   These crooks should be forced to work allowing them to earn the three daily meals and cost of the security guards...  the end result will also provide them with JOB SKILLS  they can use when they leave prison.