Man Faces Sentence for a Massive Phishing Scam

A 'phish' man from Azusa who sent thousands of e-mails to steal people's identity information was sentenced six years imprisonment in federal jail, as published by CBS2 on June 14, 2007.

Christina A. Snyder, US District Judge, in Los Angeles announced the sentence for 47-year old Jeffrey Brett Goodin on June 11, 2007. The proofs confirming Goodin's guilt led to a potential sentence of another term in federal prison for 101 years though at present, he has to serve jail for six years. In addition, Judge Snyder asked Goodin to pay $1,002,885.58 as compensation to victims of his phishing scam that also included $1 Million to Earthlink.

After a trail that stretched for a week, Goodin was convicted on January 12 under the CAN SPAM Act, 2003. The jury confirmed that Goodin spammed out thousands of e-mails to America Online (AOL) users through an Internet connection from Earthlink. The e-mails spoofed to be from America Online's billing department. They enticed AOL subscribers to submit their personal and credit card information on fake AOL webpages that were under Goodin's control. After this, he used the information to make illegal purchases on his victims' credit cards.

The six-year sentence for Goodin hopefully sends a strong message to other phishers and Internet scammers that law will not leave people who make the mistake of committing such crimes, said Assistant U.S. Attorney General, Rozella Oliver, as reported by Darkreading on June 13, 2007.

Oliver said that during the trial, the government only presented testimony of 15-16 victims. But there were more and it could take years in figuring out all the scammed individuals.

After the indictment, prosecutors said, Goodin harassed a person for helping authorities by posting offensive messages on a website. At first, he also did not appear for the court trial.

There were ten more counts on which Goodin was sentenced on June 11, besides the CAN SPAM conviction. These included performing wire fraud, encouraging illegal use of credit card, owing about 15 unauthorized access devices, committing excessive identity theft, misappropriating the AOL trademark, attempting to harass witness, and failing to turn up in court.

Related article: Man Sues and Wins against ISP for Spamming Mail

» SPAMfighter News - 6/30/2007