Spammer pleads guilty
Another Spam King cops out
FORMERLY PROLIFIC spammer Robert Alan Soloway pleaded guilty Friday in Seattle US District Court rather than face trial on dozens of criminal charges.
Federal investigators called him the "Spam King" for sending out tens of millions of unsolicited commercial emails with forged headers since 2003 using a botnet of zombied computers from his Newport Internet Marketing Corp.
(They seem to apply that same term with a boring consistency to every big-time spammer they catch. Why can't we have some variation, like a "Spam Prince" or "Spam Duke" -- maybe even a "Sultan of Spam" someday? But hoping for imagination and panache from government gumshoes might be asking too much.)
Soloway, 29, was arrested early last summer and charged with 40 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, email fraud, aggravated identity theft and failing to file taxes.
He agreed to plead guilty to one count each of mail fraud, wire fraud and failure to file a tax return. Prosecutors dropped the other charges against him.
Soloway admitted that he took in $309,000 from his spamming operation during 2005 alone. The feds have already seized at least four of his bank accounts. He agreed to submit to a lie-detector test about his other assets prior to sentencing.
Sylvie Barak adds:
As part of the plea bargain, King spam-a-lot has also reportedly agreed to tell
prosecutors all about his finances whilst undergoing a polygraph test,
although, according to the Seattle Times, he doesn’t exactly have too
many assets for them to seize. Among the items that the prosecution could
consider for forfeiture are Soloway's $3,700 collection of sunglasses (24
pairs), $7,400 worth of shoes (27 pairs), and $14,200 worth of clothing. Sounds
more like Imelda Markos than spam royalty. His sentencing date is June
20th.
Soloway faces up to 26 years at Club Fed. µ
Comments
Hah!
" Why can't we have some variation, like a "Spam Prince" or "Spam Duke" -- maybe even a "Sultan of Spam" someday?"Everybody now...! Duke, duke, duke, duke of spam, duke duke, duke of spam...
While we're on the subject of lawbreaking
Here's a neat trick: Take all the laws(statements?) in the main part of the US Constitution that apply to taxation and money, then add in the 16th Amendment, what some people refer to as "The Income Tax Amendment." Mix up the sentences, not the words in the sentences, but mix up the order of the sentences to something other than what's in the US Constitution. Now, find an English teacher that's very good a diagramming(sp?) sentences, but doesn't know much about US law. Have her diagram each sentence without telling her where the stuff comes from, the more clueless they are about that, the better.Okay, now point to the sentence(s?) having to do with the 16th Amendment and ask her if they contradict the other sentences, and if they do, how do they contradict?
The 16th Amendment DOESN'T contradict the US Constitution that precedes it. There's a reason that the educational system in the US sucks so bad, and that reason is that uneducated slaves are easier to control than educated ones.
Since this is so far off-topic already, I'm going to quit here, but if there is anyone here who want's to fight the US government on taxation, please email me at jasong at gmail dot com.
Note: Whether or not you pay taxes or not is your choice, and deciding that the government is breaking the law doesn't mean we'll hate you for continuing to turn in forms and money to the government. I pay the illegal money myself, for my own reasons.