Convicted spammer Eddie Davidson of Louisville, Colorado was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Monday by US District Judge Marcia Krieger in Denver. He was also ordered to pay $714,000 to the IRS. Davidson was indicted in May 2007 in connection with a 5 year long operation during which he allegedly sent hundreds of thousands of spam emails on behalf of 19 clients who paid him at least $3.5 million. The spam, which promoted penny stocks and merchandise such as cheap watches and perfume, was sent with fake email headers to disguise the source. He pleaded guilty in December to charges of tax evasion and falsifying email headers in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act (PC World, DOJ).
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Sometimes, spamming scammers are brought to justice: Two Nigerian nationals and a Senegalese national, each with a variety of aliases, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and multiple charges of wire fraud last Wednesday before US Magistrate Judge Roland Reyes Jr. in Brooklyn. Each wire and mail fraud count carries a maximum 20 year sentence; the conspiracy charges each carry a 5 year maximum sentence. The case was originally investigated by Dutch authorities; the three were arrested in Amsterdam in 2006 and extradited. A fourth defendant fled to Nigeria and is being held pending extradition.
The charges arose from an advance fee fraud scheme (419 scam) operated by the defendants: the all-too-familiar spam emails in which the writer claims to control millions of dollars overseas and the recipient is offered a commission for his help in gaining control of the funds; one of the scenarios in this case involved a throat cancer sufferer who wished to distribute $55 million to charity. The suckers victims in these schemes lost approximately $1.2 million in wire transfer payments to the defendants for advance fees. The DOJ Press release is here.