Sanford Wallace, Facebook Spam King, Surrenders to FBI
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| Spam King |
The 43-year-old spam artist appeared in federal court today where he was released on a $100,000 bond and ordered not to access Facebook or MySpace.
Wallace, a Las Vegas resident, was head of Cyber Promotions when he allegedly sent out more than 30 million junk e-mails during the 1990s. Before that he was best-known for sending out "junk faxes."
As his expertise evolved, he got into a war with Facebook after he supposedly cracked into 500,000 accounts and sent roughly 27 million spam messages to users, according to the indictment.
In 2009, Facebook sued Wallace, and a judge ordered the Internet equivalent of a restraining order on the spam king.
But the indictment says that Wallace violated the judge's order when he logged onto Facebook while aboard a Virgin Airlines flight from Las Vegas to New York. A California court ordered him to pay Facebook $711 million in damages. However, he filed for bankruptcy not long after.
By January, Wallace was back at the social networking; he created and maintained a Facebook profile, "David Sinful-Saturdays Fredericks," in clear violation of the court order.
Wallace has been ordered to return to court in San Jose on Aug. 22. If convicted, he could face more than 10 years in prison.
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