Two found guilty in first US felony spam conviction

A brother and sister who sent junk email to millions of America Online customers have been convicted in the first felony prosecution of internet spam distributors in the United States.

Jurors in Leesburg, Virginia, recommended that Jeremy Jaynes, 30, be sentenced to nine years in prison and fined Jessica DeGroot, 28, $7,500 dollars (€5,800/£4,000) after convicting them of three counts each of sending emails with fraudulent and untraceable routing information.

A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski, 30, was acquitted. All three defendants live in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area.

Prosecutors compared Jaynes and DeGroot to modern-day snake oil salesmen who use the Internet to peddle junk that supposedly allowed people to earn $75 (€58/£40) an hour working from home.

In one month alone, Jaynes received 10,000 credit card orders, each for $39.95 (€31/£21.60), for the processor.

“This was just a case of fraud,” said prosecutor Gene Fishel. “This is a snake oil salesman in a new format.”

Prosecutor Russell McGuire said Jaynes amassed a net wealth of $24m (€18.7m/£13m) peddling worthless products like the refund processor and other products like a “penny stock picker” and an Internet history eraser.

“He’s been successful ripping people off all these years,” McGuire said.

Prosecutors had asked the jury to impose a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for Jaynes, and to consider some amount of jail time for his sister, whom they acknowledged was less culpabale.

Defence lawyers asked jurors to spare the defendants prison terms.

David Oblon, representing Jaynes, argued that it was inappropriate for prosecutors to seek what he called an excessive punishment, given that this was the first prosecution under the Virginia law. He also noted that his client, a North Carolina resident, would have been unaware of the Virginia law.

Oblon called the jury’s recommendation of nine years in prison shocking.

“Nine years is absolutely outrageous when you look at what we do to people convicted of crimes like robbery and rape,” Oblon said.

When Jaynes and DeGroot are formally sentenced in February, Circuit Court Judge Thomas Horne will have the option of reducing the jury’s sentence or leaving it intact. He cannot increase it.

Horne also has not yet ruled on an earlier motion asking that the cases be dismissed. He said during the trial that he had a hard time allowing the prosecution of DeGroot and Rutkowski to go forward to the jury.

The attorney Oblon said Jaynes “is convinced of his innocence” and he expects the conviction will eventually be set aside.

Virginia prosecuted the case under a law that took effect last year which bars people from sending bulk e-mail that is unsolicited and masks its origin. AOL, which is based in Dulles, Virginia, is a unit of New York-based Time Warner.