Man convicted in junk e-mail case
A 37-year-old Buffalo man was convicted by a state court jury of illegally sending more than 825 million junk e-mail messages and using stolen identities to thwart attempts to stop him.
After a four-day trial, a jury found Howard H. Carmack guilty on Wednesday of 14 counts, including forgery, identity theft, falsifying business records and criminal possession of a forgery device.
Wayne C. Felle, Carmack's attorney, said the conviction will be appealed.
Prosecutors from the state attorney general's office said Carmack's conviction sends a message to illegal spammers. Investigators had been trying to nab Carmack for more than a year before his arrest last May.
He was the first person charged under New York's identity theft statute, enacted in October 2002.
Carmack faces a mandatory prison term of two to seven years. He is scheduled to be sentenced May 27.
Carmack was convicted of defrauding Internet service provider EarthLink and eight men from New York State, Ohio and Washington, D.C., by either fraudulently obtaining EarthLink accounts in their names or using their corporate e-mail addresses to sell products.
