Siblings Guilty of Spam Felony, Partner Acquitted

saikou writes "According to AP Story (via SF Chronicle), brother and sister spammers just got convicted 'in the nation's first felony prosecution of distributors of spam,' while third suspect was acquitted. Jurors moved on to figuring out appropriate punishment (please, please, please give them some jail time. Pretty please). More spam cases for Virgina?"

Comments

Re:Please ?

[mordors9]

But we do give jail time to thieves. The spammers are stealing a portion of the bandwidth that I am paying for.

Re:Yes, 9-Year Prison Term

[evn]

However like the article already mentioned, jurors who convicted Jeremy D. Jaynes, 30, and Jessica DeGroot, 28, later sentenced Jaynes to a nine-year prison term

I hate spam as much as the next guy but 9 years is a bit excessive IMO. I did a quick bit of googling to figure out what sort of sentences people get for other crimes in Virginia (because this was so out of alignment with how people are sentenced in Alberta) and I found this:

COMMONWEALTH v. Milton Tanner

On March 22, 2002, this defendant received ten years to serve for Rape, two counts of Carnal Knowledge and Taking Indecent Liberties with a minor.

From this city of Norfolk page

Yes we need to crack down on online frauds, spam, worms, et al as much as the next guy but I really don't think that sending spam should carry (roughly) the same penalty as a rape conviction. Looking at these sentences our court is either saying "Sending spam is a horrific a crime as rape" or "Rape is no more worse than sending spam."

15 years is the sentence handed out in a rape & sexual battery conviction involving a minor. This doesn't sit right.

Spammers are thieves at the very least

[Roadkills-R-Us]

What about theft? The total costs of spam are enormous, even without scams. Many, many millions of dollars per year.They suck up bandwidth and disk space, and waste millions of person-hours each year that could have bene used for something productive.

They steal bandwidth. They steal disk space. They steal our time, and time costs dearly. You can't replace it.

So until you can find a way to force them to pay restitution to everyone they've robbed, don't try to paint them as harmless.

Now add in scammers, pornographers, and all the other crap, and they deserve much, much worse than they're getting. What, you don't think porn matters? When it gets into my house, in front of me, or my wife, or my kids, it damn well matters. If you try to walk into my house and expose us to porn, you might very well leave in an ambulance if you aren't awfully quick on your feet.

Another Cliche?

[ackthpt]

The family that spams together .. Goes to the slammer together.

How about another cliche?

In one month alone, Jaynes received 10,000 credit card orders, each for $39.95, for the processor.

In other words, stupid is as stupid does.

10,000 people fell for it. Isn't that rather depressing? Ok, we probably saw vote counts for the election and wondered how so many people could be so wrong, but 10,000 people trying to order something for $40 advertised in spam, that tells you this isn't exactly a nation of rocket scientists.

You can't seriously fight spam until people stop being so damn stupid.