AOL spammer gets two years in the slammer

Spam scam sting yields results

A New Jersey man has been jailed for more than two years after he was convicted of sending millions of junk mails to AOL members.

Todd Moeller, 28, was sentenced to 27 months behind bars and fined $180,000 at a sentencing hearing last Friday after he admitted offences against US anti-spam legislation.

Moeller and partner in crime Adam Vitale, who faces a sentencing hearing on 13 November, were caught in a sting operation after they offered to bombard 1.2m AOL members with junk mail. The duo previously boasted that they could send spam runs without risk of detection.

In an instant message conversation, Moeller told an informant that they could send untraceable junk mail thanks to access to 40 different servers. He bragged that a previous stock spam campaign had earned him $40K a month, Reuters reports.

More background on the scam can be found in a June press release from the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, published at the time of Vitale's guilty plea. ®