Judge Rejects Guilty Plea From AOL Employee

The Hobo writes "Newsday has a story on a New York judge who rejected Jason Smather's guilty plea. Smathers, covered previously on Slashdot, was the AOL employee who stole and sold AOL addresses to spammers. The judge himself apparently cancelled his AOL subscription due to receiving too much spam. While he didn't like what Jason did, he wasn't convinced a crime had been committed under the CAN-SPAM law, which requires that a person be deceived."

Comments

Does not compute

[October_30th]

Authorities said Smathers, who was fired by AOL in June, used another employee's access code to steal the list of AOL customers in 2003 from its headquarters in Dulles, Va., and sold it to spammers for more than $100,000.

I don't understand how this is not deceptive, fraudulent and illegal...