Security threats Toolkit

Spammer given nine years

Andy McCue silicon.com

Published: 11 Apr 2005 18:00 BST

A spammer responsible for sending over 10 million junk emails a day has been jailed for nine years by a US judge.

Jeremy Jaynes — also known by his alias, 'Gaven Stubberfield' — is believed to have raked in between $500,000 (£260,000) and $750,000 a month through sales of products from the spam and was rated as the eighth most prolific spammer in the world by spam watchdog Spamhaus.

The circuit judge in Loudon County, Virginia upheld the nine year sentence recommended by the court when Jaynes was initially convicted last November under a recent Virginia anti-spam law, which limits the quantity of bulk email that can be sent and prohibits the use of fake email addresses.

Jaynes, a resident of North Carolina, fell foul of the law by routing the spam through servers located in Virginia, which disguised the origin of the emails. He was also found in possession of a stolen database of 84 million AOL email addresses.

But the judge suspended the nine-year jail term pending an appeal by Jaynes, who is currently out on $1m bail.

Jaynes' sister was also found guilty of being an accomplice and fined $7,500, but another associate, Richard Rutkowski, was found not guilty.

The trial revealed some astonishing details about the business of spamming. Jaynes used 16 high-speed Internet connections to peddle various fake goods and services, including a Web-history eraser and a stock-picking computer programme. Prosecutors claimed Jaynes raked in up to $24m in sales, some of which he invested in a restaurant and a chain of gyms.