Jeremy Jaynes Gets 9 Years for Spamming

[Update: The 9 year sentence was overturned on appeal, the spammer did go to prison for other crimes]

Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, North Carolina, a prolific spammer who operated using the alias 'Gaven Stubberfield' and was listed by Spamhaus' ROKSO database as being the 8th most prolific spammer in the world, has been convicted of spamming using deceptive routing information to hide the source. A Virginia court recommended Jaynes spend nine years in prison for sending hundreds of thousands of unwanted e-mail messages. Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said Jaynes was found guilty under a Virginia state law that prohibits e-mails marketers from sending more than a certain amount of spams within a given time frame and prohibits the use of fake e-mail addresses.

Jaynes' sister, Jessica DeGroot, was also found guilty and fined $7,500. An associate, Richard Rutkowski of eVictory Consulting (known to Spamhaus as being involved in "National Wealth Builders" spamming), was found not guilty.

A Loudoun County jury decided that Jeremy Jaynes, 30, and his sister Jessica DeGroot, 28 flooded tens of thousands of AOL email accounts with unsolicited email. The jury recommended that Jaynes spend nine years in prison and that DeGroot pay $7,500 in fines for violating Virginia's anti-spam law.

Although both Jaynes and DeGroot lived in North Carolina, Virginia asserted jurisdiction because they sent messages through server computers located in the state.