Posted 06/23/09 at 02:00:32 PM by Paul Lilly

Alan Ralsky, a West Bloomfield, Michigan native, has pleaded guilty to allegations of wire and mail frauds, money laundering, and of violating the CAN-SPAM Act. As a result, Raslky faces up to 7 years in prison.

"Alan Ralsky was at one time the world's most notorious illegal spammer," said U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg. "Today Ralsky, his son-in-law Scott Bradley, and three of their co-conspirators stand convicted for their roles in running an international spamming operation that sent billions of illegal email advertisements to pump up Chinese 'penny' stocks and then reap profits by using trades in these same stocks while others bought at the inflated price."

In addition to duping recipients with falsified emails, the conspirators used software that made their messages hard to track, used illegal methods to get around spam blockers, falsified headers, and used proxy computers to relay the spam and falsely registered domain names, according to the Department of Justice. Their efforts reportedly brought in over $3 million.

While many of cases are still spending, Scott Bradley, Ralsky's 38-year-old son-in-law, pleaded guilty to the same charges and faces up to 78 months in prison and $1 million fine. John Brown, 45, of Fresno California, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, of violating the CAN-SPAM Act, and conspiracy to commit computer fraud. Brown faces up to 63 months in prison and $75,000 fine. William Neil, 46, also of Fresno, California, and James Fite, 36, of Culver City, California, both pleaded guilty in the case. They, along with everyone else involved, will be sentenced on October 29, 2009.

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Posted 02/18/09 at 08:28:37 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Timothy Kyle Dunaway, a Texas-based software pirate, who had earlier pleaded guilty to one count of criminal copyright violation, has been handed a 41-month jail term by a US District Judge. His clandestine network included 40 websites hosted on servers based in Austria and Malaysia.

He is said to have sold pirated business software through these websites. His activities are estimated to have cost $1 million to software authors.

Not only has he been ordered to pay $810,257 in damages, but the court has also sequestered two of his most cherished belongings, a Ferrari 348 TB and a Rolex watch. After being unnoticed for four prolific years, his business eventually came on the government’s radar screen in May 2008.

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Posted 07/23/08 at 07:44:08 AM by Chris Moody

Unlike other kings, spam king Edward "Eddie" Davidson decided that he didn’t like his new royal domain at the minimum-security federal prison in Florence, Colorado. After serving five weeks of his 21 month sentence his Royal ‘Spamness’ hopped a ride with his wife when she came to visit.

"He jumped in the car with his wife," said Will Cochenour with Lakewood police. "When they were leaving, he forced her in the car, brought them home and left after a change in clothing.” Davidson was last seen Sunday afternoon in his wife's 2006 silver Toyota Sequoia.

Davidson's Power Promoters spamming network promoted junk between 2002 and 2005, gumming up inboxes everywhere.

The U.S. Marshals are leading the search, with help from FBI, IRS and the Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force. This time however they are sure not to take him back to Club Fed, but somewhere with a bit more security, and you can bet he’ll be in for a longer stretch of time too. This is providing that one of his spammed subjects doesn’t run into him first and tar and feather him. While this would make it a great disguise, it is sure to remove hair coming off (ouch).

If you are out looking for the spam king, be sure to imagine him without his royal accoutrements as pictured below.

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Posted 03/17/06 at 04:34:56 PM by Thomas McDonald

Prison is a very serious subject of intense public scrutiny and opinion. But criminals have all the fun in games!

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Posted 03/16/06 at 04:13:15 PM by Josh Norem

Whoever said that 'bad guys have more fun' obviously didn't play the pitiful 25 to Life.

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