No deal for AOL employee
Judge refuses to accept guilty plea.
A federal judge has refused to accept the guilty plea of a former AOL employee charged with selling the company's customer email list to spammers.
Jason Smathers, who was offered a deal if he entered a guilty plea to charges of conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property, faced a potential prison term of 18 months to two years, plus fines. But Judge Alvin Hellerstein refused to accept his plea because he remained unconvinced that Smathers had committed a crime.
Judge Hellerstein told the court: 'I'm not prepared to go ahead ... I need to be independently satisfied that a crime has been created.'
Hellerstein has scheduled another hearing of the case in January.
24-year-old Smathers is accused of stealing at least 92 million screen names from AOL's database and selling the information to an associate.
22 December 2004
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