According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Perry, who will prosecute the case, Joshua Eveloff and Michael Twombly have been charged with conspiracy and fraud in connection with the generation of commercial electronic messages — aka spam.
The fraud charge calls for a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, if the men are convicted. The conspiracy charge carries with it a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
According to Perry, while many Americans consider spam a mere annoyance, cases such as this demonstrate how the practice is a “vehicle for fraud.”
The indictment accuses the men of sending spam that exceeded a volume of 2,500 messages per day, 25,000 during a 30-day period and 250,000 during a one-year period.
The indictment also alleges financial losses as a result of the spam in the amount of $5,000.
According to Perry, the defendants conspired to distribute millions of spam messages with false and misleading header information between April and July 2004.
The defendants allegedly used a variety of business entities, including Software Factory Solutions, Markshire Worldwide and Interactive Midnight, to perpetrate their fraud, Perry said.
According to the indictment, the men also used the aliases “Michael Crawford,” “Michael Murphy” and “Michael S. Anderson” to lease dedicated servers with the intent to transmit the spam messages.
Twombly is scheduled to appear in San Diego, Calif., federal court Oct. 2. Eveloff, who was arraigned Aug. 22 in an Omaha, Neb. federal court, will appear before a U.S. Magistrate Judge Aug. 24 in San Diego.
