Spammer Alan Ralsky Pleads Guilty

Czmyt sends the excellent news that one of the US's most notorious spammers has pleaded guilty and could serve 6 years in jail. "Five individuals pleaded guilty today in federal court in Detroit for their roles in a wide-ranging international stock fraud scheme involving the illegal use of bulk commercial e-mails, or 'spamming'... Alan M. Ralsky, 64, of West Bloomfield, Mich., and Scott K. Bradley, 38, also of West Bloomfield, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and to violate the CAN-SPAM Act. ... Ralsky and Bradley also pleaded guilty to wire fraud, money laundering, and violating the CAN-SPAM Act. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Ralsky acknowledges he is facing up to 87 months in prison and a $1 million fine..."

Re:Judgement

[pbhj]

Hang him from the nearest lamp post and then burn him.

Yeah, we should only allow company executives and rich investors to take vast amounts of money through share price manipulation.

Re:Judgement

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, at least those execs and investors didn't clog up my inbox with V|agr@ ads

Re:Judgement

[wannabgeek]

A little perspective please...

Yes, spam is damn annoying and the guys deserve imprisonment, and confiscation of every penny they earned through spam. But to compare fraudulent execs favorably to these, is a little overboard. Cheating you out of your money is lesser crime than spam?!?!

Math

[MyLongNickName]

Ralsky acknowledges he is facing up to 87 months in prison and a $1 million fine..

Summary says 6 years, then 87 months. Someone want to RTFA and tell me where the difference comes in?

Re:Judgement

[hansraj]

Clearly they are calling the wrong guy - it is obvious that he doesn't have 1999's or anyone's spam-filter.

Re:Judgement

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheating me out of my *time* and the usefulness of email *every* *dang* *day*? It's a close call....

I was going to post the sentiment until I saw the other AC above had beaten me to it.

$1 million fine

[smdm]

Finally we make real money from SPAM!

Spammers don't care how much you hate them

[Anonymous Coward]

Because people STILL buy their products

Re:Judgement

[jcaplan]

I get as livid as anyone about spam, but the whole prison rape thing really bugs me. Its real and is allowed to occur by our prison system, but is not part of the sentence. Nobody, not even spammers, deserve rape. What I don't get is why it took so long to take down this known spammer.

It could be worse

[incripshin]

He got off easy. Just think of how much money he would owe if he had been downloading music. And I'm sure he got paid well with his spam business.

And in the end...

[damn_registrars]

... it won't make a damned bit of difference in the overall spamming epidemic. One spammer thrown in jail is like stomping on an ant colony; it might give some immediate satisfaction to those who are of that persuasion, but there are still trillions of ants left doing the same thing.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: spam is an economic problem. If the US wrote 500 new anti-spam laws today, making it illegal to so much as consider sending out spam, it wouldn't matter worth shit. People who are sending out spam today do it because people pay them to do it; and they will find places to send it from so that they can keep making money at it. They all know that the US laws aren't worth anything anywhere outside the US (and their worth inside the US is debatable as well), which is part of why we see so much spam come from other countries.