'Spam King' faces more than 40 years in prison
A Las Vegas man accused of sending more than 27 million spam messages to Facebook users faces federal fraud and computer tampering charges that could send him to prison for more than 40 years, according to a grand jury indictment.
Sanford Wallace, the self-proclaimed "Spam King", pleaded not guilty during an initial court appearance last week after being indicted July 6 on six counts of electronic mail fraud, three counts of intentional damage to a protected computer and two counts of criminal contempt.
The indictment filed in San Jose federal court said Wallace compromised about 500,000 Facebook accounts between November 2008 and March 2009 by sending massive amounts of spam through the company's servers on three separate occasions.
