Man pleads guilty for sending tons of spam
Adam Vitale has pleaded guilty to sending over one million unsolicited e-mails to AOL customers over the span of six days, which could lead to a substantial fine and over a decade in prison. According to news wire IDGNS, the US Secret Service planted a fake project for Vitale to deliver advertisements to as many people as possible, in exchange for half of all profits the messages garnered. They were then able to track down his location and charge him with e-mail fraud. According to prosecutors, Vitale and another man, Todd Moeller, defeated AOL’s filter system by using several different computer servers to relay the e-mails and changed the e-mail header information to ensure the spam e-mails could not be traced back to them.
The 26-year-old Vitale was allegedly in tandem with Todd Moeller, a co-defendant who pled not guilty. The two reportedly sent around 1.2 million e-mails to AOL users between August 17 and August 23, 2005. Vitale will begin sentencing hearings on September 13. The e-mail fraud charges carry a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Moeller will stand trial for the same charges, with a court date yet to be announced. Hunt out more of these bastards!
Comments(31)
Nice to hear, dont hope u guys will be the next hehe
The two reportedly sent around 1.2 million e-mails to AOL users between August 17 and August 23, 2005
Why the hell has it taken this long to get to sentencing?
Nice read though
yep nice question tqd…………hehe ^.^
Well I don’t understand what stops the justice depart from getting a few more court rooms thrown up and jamming them in jail within a month after getting sufficient evidence. Years is just not good enough, what else will they do in that time?
The Dept´d have reacted earlier, if they hadn´t been busy deleting tons of spam they received … there´s so many of them O_o
Im sorry, i dont think that i would want to spam emails and get 10 years in jail. Its just not worth it. That really sucks for them but i do laugh at there misfortune. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Man pleads guilty for sending tons of spam!
I didnt know email could be weighed??
Sounds like entrapment to me…
man everybody does spam they should consider internet crimes real cause they are virtual
lol , hire the guy for a anti spam company instead , americans are so idiots they just prefer the old hang him method
That’s funny, 11 years in jail for spam and 3 years in jail for killing someone while DUI. The system rocks…
haha funny #7
Brandon, did you just imagine that number? One google search for DUI manslaughter showed up 35, 15, and 5 years imprisonment sentences, with the latter sentence being the case of an honorably discharged soldier who fully cooperated with the cops and didn’t drink that much to start with. People like you (as well as the ‘americans are so idiots’ guy above) are exactly what’s wrong with the world today, dammit.
americans are so idiots
US has its problems, so does every one else… Dont believe all the “cool” stories you read of the net. Only real one is that americans are the fattest ppl
Decade of jail for spamming, not very right to be honest but damn i just loved reading that and i just wished i was there to see their faces when heard they were fucked by feds… “priceles”
As millions of ppl download stuff and most of are from sites that dont get money for em and the real source of the release is hard to track its very unlikely anyone of us will be waking up to “FBI!” behind the door. The scene today is one of the worlds biggest “loopholes” that exists and its everywhere the same, also fixing this loophole would be very difficult…
Difficult? If the goverments put a tiny bit more money into cracking down on people “in the scene”, after only a few got caught and sent to prison it would pretty much go dead because everyone would become too scared to realise stuff / download it.
Kyle XY season 2 episode 1….. snap snap.. get writing!
I hope the spammer drops his soap in prison (if he ever gets to prison). Seriously, I hate spammers!
As far as my limited knowledge of the subject goes, maximum sentences are rarely imposed in the United States. Moreover, ‘good time’ policies, paroles, and other programs for well-behaved prisoners allow for receiving up to 50% cuts in their serving times. The infamous FBI copyright notice warns that copyright infringement may constitute felony with maximum penalty of up to 5 years in prison and/or $250,000 fine. How often do such sentences occur? I say (again, no legal experience whatsoever) the guy who pleaded guilty will get a 20,000-30,000 fine and a year or two of prison time, if not some sort of a probation deal.
Why should crime be considered less important because its on the internet i never understood that reasoning.
Don’t forget that the internet is maybe the only source of income for some businesses.
sounds like entrapment is right…..stupid americans……thank God I dont live there
Shrek.3.TeleCine-XviD-CK
I think crime jail time depends on the amount of impact and occurances, spam is an everyday occurance and this guy sent 1.2mil+ spam emails(THATS ALOT) to other people is the reason for the long jail time. While as the guy stated earlier, only a couple of DUI manslaughter occured.
@TQD, as long as there is a “good” side of the force, theres always a dark side……
Demon, don’t waste your time. The argument, if something this nonsensical can be considered as such, doesn’t have any rational foundation underneath it.
Here’s a list of some Internet-related crimes taken from Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section of the U.S. Justice Department. Some of these virtual gags are just adorable. Who in their right mind could consider any of them threatening, I have no idea…
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/reporting.htm
Password trafficking
Counterfeiting of currency
Computer intrusion (i.e. hacking)
Child Pornography or Exploitation
Internet fraud and SPAM (Since when spam is an acronym?)
Internet harassment
Internet bomb threats
Copyright piracy
Trademark counterfeiting
Theft of trade secrets
Spam, what spam… I didn’t get a can of spam… pork by products????
Just pulling your leg. Well when one fall, two will sprout up.
@24 i agree. theres always gonna be more ppl to fill the gaps. Especially with the amount of young ppl coming into the know how now adays there’ll be more and more.
“Hunt out more of these bastards!” hehe this made me laugh so much….so they sent out some spam, and we download illegal software, games, movies and music and this website is a news service for those releases…sure we find spam annoying but so does the RIAA and MPAA find that our free downloads annoying.
WTF! Entrapment or what!
Also, why the hell would somebody risk sending millions of emails out for a measly 50% profit from the adverts. If 10 people responded, they’d get about $5.
i dont think u guys are getting the big picture. this guy had a fucking porsche and a really nice house. he must have been making a bit of money to continue doing it.
1.2 mill in 6 days. he might have been doing it for years!!!
there area a lot of dumb fucks out there that actually try and buy viagra from there emails LOL what morons.
the heavy jail term isn’t for sending pissy spam. ITS FOR STEALING MONEY!!!! and most likely lots of it. come on guys grow some brains. sure we D/L movies n stuff. but thats way different than praying on dumb fucks and stealing there cash.
well thats my rant. glad the got emm. gotta get the rest of those fuckers.
1 million? that’s it? I used to work for a guy and we had 20+ computers set up and we would on average send out about 4 million emails a night… from 10pm until 7am.. about 3 mil of those going to aol users… 1 million? that isn’t sheeeit… LOL …
ps: once i realized that it might not be kosher to be doing what he had me doing… i promptly quit… btw, this was in 2001…
Good riddence to spam rubbish.
A bit of hard time should correct their ways!
….for sending a couple of emails?