LEESBURG, Va. - From a nondescript house in a neighboring state, Jeremy Jaynes and his sister raked in upward of $24 million with fake Internet offers of penny-stock tickers, nonexistent FedEx refunds, cheap drugs and pornography.
They did it by flooding the inboxes of millions of gullible Internet users with junk e-mails known as spam. Indeed, Jaynes was ranked among the top 10 spammers in the world.
But last week in this picturesque town that traces its lineage to 1758, Jaynes' schemes fell victim to what government officials and anti-spam groups hope will become an increasingly effective weapon against Internet fraud: hefty doses of jail time.
Using a new state anti-spam law that is considered the toughest in the United States, a Virginia jury reached out and convicted North Carolina residents Jaynes and Jessica DeGroot of sending untraceable junk e-mails to millions of customers for America Online, which is based in northern Virginia.
It was the first conviction under the law, the first in the nation to make it a felony to send large numbers of fraudulent, unsolicited e-mail messages.
In a state that is home to some of the nations' largest Internet service providers, the jury's decision was a milestone in another way: It made it likely that Jaynes will serve substantial prison time. The trial judge will not impose sentence until February, but the jury recommended nine years.
DeGroot, 28, who was found to have played only a supporting role in her brother's activities, was fined $7,500. A third defendant was acquitted. Jaynes' lawyer is contesting the prosecutions.
Although building legal cases against spammers and bringing them to court can be difficult, given the global nature of the Internet, state officials and anti-spam advocates hope this case and others in the works will reverberate beyond the mid-Atlantic region - much the way high-profile legal action put a crimp in the downloading of pirated music from the Internet. |
