Man Faces Criminal Prosecution for Domain Name Theft

Posted 08/04/2009 at 3:10pm | by Paul Lilly

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New Jersey resident Daniel Goncalves is making history as the first person ever to be arrested and charged for domain name theft in the United States.

Goncalve, a 25-year-old law firm computer technician, stands accused of hacking into Albert Angel's AOL email account and using that information to retrieve the login details for P2P.com from Angel's Godaddy.com domain account. Probably not the best target to go after, Angel is an attorney and former Justice Department prosecutor with a background in internet payment processing.

According to reports, Goncalve also falsified Paypal.com transaction records in an attempt to cover his trail and make it appear as though he purchased the domain for $1,500 from the Angels, much lower than the $160,000 Albert Angel, his wife Lesli Angel, and domain name investor Marc Ostrosfsky paid for the domain in 2005.

There's a whole lot more to this story, which involves an Ebay sale to Mark Madsen, an NBA basketball player with the LA Clippers (and a terrible dancer). You can read all the gory details here.

Image Credit: Flickr Joe Gratz