Suicide Spammer had Belligerent Streak: Former Vendor

“This was during the dot-com bust, and they were losing a lot of clients, so it was hard to say ‘no,’” said Lewinski.

Within weeks, Lewinski said, Davidson was using servers in Florida to do dictionary attacks on RockyNet’s servers to try and get the names and e-mail addresses of its users. Essentially, Davidson was using his computers in Florida to attack his own service provider in Colorado in an effort to further his spamming activities.

Then, Lewinski said, he started getting complaints from other Internet system administrators that someone was using RockyNet’s machines to try and sniff out so-called open proxies, or machines on other networks that could be compromised to disguise the source of spam.

As Lewinski investigated, he said he became aware that Davidson was engaged in pennystock pump-and-dump scams—one of the types of crimes for which Davidson would later be sent to prison.

So Lewinski decided to alert the Securities and Exchange Commission. He sent SEC the a letter—on Sept. 10, 2001. The next day, terrorists attacked lower Manhattan, and the SEC began focusing on issues more pressing than pennystock scams.

Lewinski said the SEC responded to his inquiry, but said it was “still doing a headcount” after the attacks.

In any case, on Jan.1 2002, Lewinski said, he shut off Davidson’s account.

The phone call that followed was a fairly typical exchange between Davidson and Lewinski, he said.

“He was a hostile person in general,” said Lewinski. “Every conversation with him was kind of an adrenaline rush because he was always so belligerent.”

During one such previous conversation, Lewinski recounts, Davidson said: “Everybody knows that ever since I came to RockyNet you’ve had a hard-on for me!”

After his account was shut off, Davidson left owing RockyNet $30,000, Lewinski said. However, over the ensuing years he’d occasionally call RockyNet’s CEO to see if they might strike another deal. Though the CEO strung Davidson along, hoping he might recoup some of his losses, they never were able to reach an agreement, said Lewinski.

When news came out that Davidson had escaped prison, Lewinski did a Google search on himself to see if Davidson might be able to find his home address. And he also began locking his office door. The day Davidson was found dead, Lewinski said he still locked his office door “out of habit.”

Now that Davidson is gone, Lewinski is understandably relieved, but shaken. “I’m still kind of processing it all,” he said. “I may have had some malice toward the man, but I never wished him dead.”

And though he didn’t say it outright, Lewinski is also clearly haunted by Davidson’s murders of his wife and daughter.

“The biggest thought I have been having is what if I would have reported him to the SEC a year earlier?” said Lewinski. “Maybe they would have got him earlier and maybe he would not have met that woman and killed her. But then maybe he would have gone to jail, gotten out, and met another woman and killed her and another little girl.”

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