CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 - Criminal Enforcement

Criminal Enforcement

On February 16, 2004, Anthony Greco, 18, of Cheektowaga, New York, was the first person to be arrested under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced in a closed session.

Within a few months, hundreds of lawsuits had been filed by an alliance of ISPs. Many of these efforts resulted in settlements; most are still pending. Though most defendants were "John Does," many spam operations, such as Scott Richter's, were known.

On April 29, 2004, the United States government brought the first criminal and civil charges under the Act. Criminal charges were filed by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, and the FTC filed a civil enforcement action in the Northern District of Illinois. The defendants were a company, Phoenix Avatar, and four associated individuals: Daniel J. Lin, James J. Lin, Mark M. Sadek, and Christopher Chung of West Bloomfield, Michigan. Defendants were charged with sending hundreds of thousands of spam emails advertising a "diet patch" and "hormone products." The FTC stated that these products were effectively worthless. Authorities said they face up to five years in prison under the anti-spam law and up to 20 years in prison under U.S. mail fraud statutes.

On September 27, 2004, Nicholas Tombros pled guilty to charges and became the first spammer to be convicted under the Can-Spam Act of 2003. He was sentenced in July 2007 to three years probation, six months house arrest, and fined $10,000.

On April 1, 2006, Mounir Balarbi, of Tangier, Morocco, was the first person outside the United States to have an arrest warrant validated under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Mounir's trial was held in absentia, and he was sentenced in a closed session.

On January 16, 2006, Jeffrey Goodin, 45, an Azusa, California, man was convicted by a jury in United States district court in Los Angeles in United States v. Goodin, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, 06-110, under the CAN-SPAM Act (the first conviction under the Act), and on June 11, 2007, was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison. Out of a potential sentence of 101 years prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 94 months. Goodin was already detained in custody as he had missed a court hearing.

As of late 2006, CAN-SPAM has been all but ignored by spammers. A review of spam levels in October 2006 estimated that 75% of all email messages were spam, and the number of spam emails complying with the requirements of the law were estimated to be 0.27% of all spam emails.

By mid 2010, about 90% of email were spam.

On August 25, 2005, three people were indicted on two counts of fraud and one count of criminal conspiracy. On March 6, 2006 Jennifer R. Clason, 33, of Raymond, New Hampshire, pled guilty and was to be sentenced on June 5, 2006. She faced a maximum sentence of 5 years on each of the three counts and agreed to forfeit money received in the commission of these crimes. On June 25, 2007, the remaining two were convicted of spamming out millions of e-mail messages that included hardcore pornographic images. Jeffrey A. Kilbride, 41, of Venice, California, and James R. Schaffer, 41, of Paradise Valley, Arizona, were convicted on eight counts in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, Arizona. Both were sentenced to five years in prison, and ordered to forfeit $1,300,000. The charges included conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and transportation of obscene materials. The trial, which began on June 5, was the first to include charges under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, according to the Department of Justice. The specific law that prosecutors used under the CAN-Spam Act was designed to crack down on the transmission of pornography in spam. Two other men, Andrew D. Ellifson, 31, of Scottsdale, Arizona, and Kirk F. Rogers, 43, of Manhattan Beach, California, also pled guilty to charges under the CAN-SPAM Act related to this spamming operation. Both were scheduled to be sentenced on June 5, 2006 in Phoenix.

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