Diamond Jim goes down

[gonzo]

PHOENIX – After a June trial lasting three weeks, Jeffrey A. Kilbride of Venice, Calif. and James R. Schaffer of Paradise Valley, Ariz. were sentenced Friday to more than five years in federal prison for having sent millions of unsolicited commercial e-mails containing sexually explicit materials.

This was the first conviction obtained under 2003's "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act," or CAN-SPAM, although three associates of Kilbride and Schaffer had previously pled guilty to offenses under the Act, and had testified against the defendants at their trial.

Prosecutors charged that the pair had sent out "millions" of unsolicited sexually-oriented e-mails altogether, and that during just nine months in 2004, Kilbride, Schaffer and an associate had sent more that 600,000 advertisements for adult websites, earning them more than $2 million in commissions.

The CAN-SPAM Act provides that all unsolicited e-mails must have accurate "To," "From" and routing information; that the subject line cannot be misleading as to the e-mail's contents; that the e-mail be labeled as an advertisement and include the sender's actual physical postal address; and the e-mail must contain a legitimate "opt-out" method for those who do not wish to receive future similar e-mailings.

It came out at trial that the defendants had used falsified headers and domain names to direct recipients of the e-mails to sexually-oriented websites, earning millions of dollars through the redirects. Testimony also revealed that after the CAN-SPAM Act became law, the defendants took steps to relocate their business overseas so as to evade prosecution under the Act.. By remotely logging in to servers located in Amsterdam, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release, the men were able to make it appear that the messages they were sending originated abroad, when they were actually being sent from Phoenix.

In all, Kilbride and Schaffer were convicted of several felony counts of obscenity, fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, and were sentenced to 72 months and 63 months, respectively. The pair were also fined $100,000, ordered to pay $77,500 in restitution to AOL, Inc., and ordered to forfeit to the government more than $1.1 million earned from the spamming operation.

[softball]

and not a tear was shed.

[JoesHO]

I wonder who all else in in the cross hairs for this?
As is obvious they will all turn on each other at trial and look to blame the other guy more.

what a mess to be caught up in for sure .

[Toby]

Since it's Federal time, they'll actually have to serve at least 85% of it.

[RawAlex]

Sad for Jim, for he was just one in a series of people all doing the same sort of thing. I suspect that in many ways, the efforts they put to push it offshore were in fact their undoing. Specifically attempting to circumvent a US federal law tends to get the courts upset.

I think that more than a few people out there need to be worried. Did anyone in this group happen to mention or point fingers at other people? The girl was pretty fast to give the boys up, I wouldn't be shocked if she mentioned a few other people on the way by. With a solid prosecution of this case, it is much easier to make cases against others.

I suspect more than a few past visitors to Oprano are sensing danger.

[softball]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Sad for Jim, for he was just one in a series of people all doing the same sort of thing. I suspect that in many ways, the efforts they put to push it offshore were in fact their undoing. Specifically attempting to circumvent a US federal law tends to get the courts upset.

I think that more than a few people out there need to be worried. Did anyone in this group happen to mention or point fingers at other people? The girl was pretty fast to give the boys up, I wouldn't be shocked if she mentioned a few other people on the way by. With a solid prosecution of this case, it is much easier to make cases against others.

I suspect more than a few past visitors to Oprano are sensing danger.

This seems to be a fairly serious precedent.