Junk email conman jailed

A CONMAN who sent millions of junk emails has been jailed for nine years in the first prosecution of its kind.

Jeremy Jaynes, 30, was found guilty, along with his sister Jessica DeGroot, of bombarding America Online customers with unsolicited mail.

Prosecutors in America described them as modern day 'snake oil salesmen'. The fraud involved offering people the chance to earn money working from home.

The case comes as figures show spam now accounts for between 60% and 80% of all emails sent to Britain, with most of them coming from America. Jaynes was jailed and DeGroot, 28, was fined £4,000 for sending emails with 'fraudulent and untraceable routing information'.

A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski, was acquitted of similar charges.

Lawyers in Virginia prosecuted the case under a law that took effect last year barring people from sending bulk email that is unsolicited and masks its origin. Roughly half of the world's internet traffic passes through Virginia.

Prosecutor Russell McGuire said Jaynes from Raleigh, North Carolina, amassed a net wealth of $24m peddling worthless products to AOL customers.

'He's been successful ripping people off all these years,' said Mr McGuire.

Jaynes, who used the alias Gaven Stubberfield, was ranked by the watchdog group Spamhaus as the eighth-most prolific spammer in the world when he was arrested last December.

Jaynes sent out more than 100,000 such messages over a 30-day period in July and August last year, in violation of state law, according to the charges.

In one month alone, he received 10,000 credit card orders, each for £25 for one of the products.

'This was just a case of fraud,' said state prosecutor Samuel E. Fishel. 'This is a snake-oil salesman in a new format.'

Prosecutors asked the jury to impose a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for Jaynes, and to consider an unspecified prison term for his sister.

DeGroot was convicted after prosecutors proved she used her credit card to help out the operation.