30 months of bread and water for spammer

Behind bars

Get the bunting out - another spammer is being sent to the clink.

27-year-old Adam Vitale was sentenced by a federal court in Manhattan yesterday to 30 months in prison after sending spam to more than 1.2 million AOL users in less than a week.

Vitale and his business partner Todd Moeller (who was himself sent to prison last November for his part in the scheme) boasted via instant messages with a confidential government informant that they could send emails without risk of their origin being tracked back. Earlier in the case, Vitale pleaded guilty under the CAN-SPAM Act to falsifying email headers and using a variety of computer servers in order to evade detection by AOL's spam-filtering system.

According to court records, Vitale wanted a share of the profits made from selling the goods sold via spam.

Vitale was also ordered to pay $180,000 to AOL, which is presumably going to make a dent in his pocket. Do prison uniforms have pockets? I'm not sure.