Kilbride and Schaffer Sentenced for International Pornographic Spamming Business

As posted at http://www.usdoj.gov/, Jeffrey Kilbride and James Schaffer, both 41 years old were sentenced on October 11, 2007 for organizing and running an international pornographic spamming business that grossed over $1 million.

Kilbride and Schaffer were sentenced to 72 and 63 months in prison, respectively. They were also fined $100,000, ordered to pay $77,500 in restitution to AOL Inc. and jointly forfeit more than $1.1 million of illegal proceeds from their spamming operation.

They were previously convicted on 8 counts of violation last June 25, 2007 by a federal jury in Phoenix. Included in the violations are

• violating the Controlling the Assault of Non-solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act of 2003 by sending spam messages using falsified headers and domain names
• conspiracy
• fraud
• money laundering
• and various obscenity charges.

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, a law designed to crack down on the transmission of pornography in commercial bulk unsolicited electronic mail messages

Their pornography spamming business involved sending millions of unsolicited email messages advertising commercial internet hard-core pornography websites. Kilbride and Schaffer earned a commission for each person they caused to subscribe to one of these web sites. Hardcore pornographic images were embedded in each email they sent and were visible to any person who opened the email.

Kilbride and Schaffer's operation included three other co-conspirators: Jennifer Clason, 32, of Tempe, Ariz.; Andrew Ellifson, 31, of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Kirk Rogers, 43, of Manhattan Beach, Calif. Clason, Ellifson, and Rogers have pleaded guilty for their roles in the scheme and testified against Kilbride and Schaffer.

Can their conviction serve as a lesson or a threat to other spammers out there?