IMHO, the only thing worse than spammers are residential telemarketers. Nice to see that some of the email con-men are being caught and ingeniously prosecuted under the more severe Federal mail fraud statutes.
SPAM: Nigerians Indicted: The interesting aspect of this case is that the indictment alleges conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, and bank fraud, but not email fraud under the CAN-SPAM Act (15 U.S.C. § 7704). This is likely because the punishment for the first three offenses is far greater than the punishment for sending an email message knowing that the recipient would be misled by the subject heading of the email about material facts represented in the message, as proscribed by section 7704. The punishment for email fraud is up to five years in prison and a fine, while wire and mail fraud carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison and bank fraud carries a punishment of up to 30 years in prison.By the way, if you believe the million dollar estate of a terminally ill foreigner is looking for Americans to help distribute the wealth to charity … you might be a Democratic voter.
As we have seen before, prosecutors are required to charge individuals under the most “serious offense that is consistent with the nature of the defendant’s conduct, and that is likely to result in a sustainable conviction.”
