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Cybersquatter Faces Jail Time For Wire Fraud
coondoggie writes to mention that a Las Vegas man faces about 20 years in prison today after pleading guilty in a case where he impersonated intellectual property lawyers and tried to bully owners out of their domain names. "According to the FBI, David Scali is charged with registering an e-mail account under an alias and then sending e-mails in which he claimed to be the intellectual property lawyer. In the e-mails, which were sent in late June and early July of 2006, Scali threatened to file $100,000 trademark infringement lawsuits against the owners of various Internet website names unless they gave up their domain name registrations within two days."
Now when is the FBI going to come down on the real lawyers who do the exact same thing?
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
If you're going to rip someone off, don't rip off a lawyer. And if you're going to rip someone off on the internet, especially don't rip off a technology lawyer. Jeeze.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Maybe he shouldn't have signed it Lionel Hutch, Esq.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Would this be the equivalent of "winning" the Darwin Awards in the legal field?
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
"The" intellectual property lawyer?
It's been just one person causing all this pain?
Maybe he shouldn't have signed it Lionel Hutch, Esq.
You mean Lionel Hutz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Hutz
If you are going to impersonate someone, at least impersonate the right person.
From the bottom of TFA:
"The plea agreement contemplates a sentence ranging from probation to six months in custody, but the sentencing judge will make the final decision as to what Scali's sentence will be."
In other words, the title of this article is very misleading.
The maximum sentence is 20 years. Prosecutors agreed to ask for something in the probation-6 months range in exchange for a guilty plea. The judge makes the final decision and he is allowed to give up to the maximum, although they usually follow the plea agreement.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The article title says he "faces 20 years in prison" to be sensational, and maybe that is the theoretical maximum. But the last line of the article says that "the plea agreement contemplates a sentence ranging from probation to six months in custody". The judge gets the final decision, but he is much more likely to get probation than a 20yr sentence.
Fyodor
Which is exactly why you should ignore legal threats.
"I'll see you in court then" is the only sensible response.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And do what, indict them for impersonating themselves?
We've had several similar threats from cybersquatters in the past. As well as the usual imposters trying to get us to transfer domain registrations.
This sort of thing deserves closer policing. It is a drain on the time of registrars and registrants alike to have to deal with these sorts of charlatans.
10001001111001110110011000011101110
He's not being charged with two things, he's being charged with one thing. That "and" in there doesn't imply there are two separate aspects to his behavior. The two taken in conjunction constitute a SINGLE offense.
Yea but no one goes into a lawyer's office asking "hey can you help steal a bunch of shit?" ...oh wait
Impersonating a lawyer is bad enough, but going so far as to impersonate an intellectual property lawyer? The man clearly has no shame. Society must be protected from people as depraved as him.
Between the falling angel and the rising ape