Jeffrey Kilbride of Venice, Calif., and James Schaffer of Paradise Valley, Ariz., began their spamming operation in 2003, embedding hardcore pornography in mass emails, making it available and visible to anyone who opened the messages. When the CAN-SPAM act became law a year later, the two used international servers and mismatching "reply to" and "from" addresses, making it difficult to trace the spam emails.
The Justice Department said Kilbride and Schaffer registered their domains under the name of a "fictitious employee at a shell corporation" that the two had set up in the Republic of Mauritius, another serious CAN-SPAM violation. They also used overseas banks to launder and hide money from the IRS.
Kilbride and Schaffer face fines of up to $500,000 and up to 20 years in jail for money-laundering charges. Each spam and obscenity offense also could bring them five additional years of jail time.
Kilbride and Schaffer initially were charged in 2005. Schaffer also was charged with 2257 violations, after officials discovered he had not maintained appropriate records for the adult performers featured on Boobs.com, CumShots.com and FaceSat.com, three websites he operated overseas through The Compliance Company and Ganymede Marketing.
Three associates of the duo have pleaded guilty to charges, including New Hampshire resident Jennifer Clason, who faces up to 15 years in prison after her conviction last year.
Clason was in charge of creating and sending spam emails to millions of AOL members, resulting in more than 600,000 complaints, which prompted the Justice Department to investigate.