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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