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Spam conviction dismissed

Judge overturns conviction in US spam case

A US Judge has overturned a conviction in one of last year's high profile anti-spam cases. Judge Thomas D. Horne has ruled that there was insufficient evidence for the conviction of Jessica DeGroot alongside her brother, prolific spammer Jeremy Jaynes (aka Gavin Stubberfield).

In November 2004 a jury convicted DeGroot and Jaynes on several felony counts of using fraudulent means to send unsolicited bulk email. DeGroot was fined $7,500, while Jaynes was sentenced to nine years imprisonment.

This week Judge Horne dismissed DeGroot's conviction, ruling that it had been made without 'rational basis', but upheld Jaynes' conviction.

The same case made the news earlier in 2004 when the counsel representing Jaynes called for the case to be dismissed since, they argued, the Virginian anti-spam law violated the federal Commerce Clause and the First Amendment. In response to the claims Judge Horne ruled that Virginia's anti-spam law is constitutional and the case continued.

John Levine, Chair of the ASRG, was called to testify in the case as an expert on email technology. A fascinating account of his involvement in the trial can be found here. Legal expert Jon Praed was also involved in the trial, and gave audiences at the MIT Spam Conference an idea of how evidence was used to convict Jaynes. The presentation can be found in a free webcast on the Spam Conference website.

04 March 2005

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