Va. arrests third person in spam dragnet
A third person has been arrested in connection with an illegal e-mail operation, the state attorney general announced Wednesday. Jessica Jaynes, who is also known as Jessica DeGroot, was indicted by a grand jury in Loudoun County on Wednesday. Jaynes is charged with four felony counts of using fraudulent means to send illegal unsolicited bulk e-mail, commonly known as spam. Jaynes is the sister of Jeremy Jaynes, who was arrested in December on similar charges. Both are from Raleigh, N.C. Jeremy Jaynes was arrested along with Richard Rutowski of Cary, N.C. All three face up to 20 years in prison each. Their trial date has been set for Sept. 7 in Loudoun County. These are the first three arrests made since Virginia's anti-spam law went into effect in July, said Carrie Cantrell, said a spokeswoman for state Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore. Cantrell said the agency's Computer Crime Unit often can determine where the e-mails are coming from by looking at domain names, working with Internet service providers and checking Internet connections. "It's a very different type of investigation in that you're looking for technological fingerprints versus a robber you caught on a camera in a store," she said. "It's a very tedious task, but a very necessary one. (spam) costs billions of dollars to businesses every year, and we want to do all we can to stop it." Although all of the suspects are from North Carolina, Cantrell said, "they went through a server in Virginia, and as long as they go through Virginia then we can prosecute them under our Virginia statutes." Northern Virginia is a major hub for Internet traffic, and because of that Virginia has an opportunity to snag many more "spammers," Cantrell said. Nicholas Graham, a spokesman for America Online, said the arrests are important. "We believe it will make spammers think twice when they click on their send buttons," Graham said. AOL has 33 million members worldwide, Graham said. One "spammer" can send millions of junk e-mails to members in a short time, tying up Internet traffic and annoying Internet users. He praised Virginia's strong anti-spam law, saying, "It's removing spammers from behind computer screens and putting them behind bars."
Reproduced from an article published by Seattle PI
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