Reputed Spam King Gets Four Years in Prison

Robert Alan Soloway has a long history of thumbing his nose at authority. Now he’s going to jail.

The man dubbed “Spam King” by prosecutors was sentenced in a Seattle federal court Tuesday to 47 months in prison and ordered to pay $708,000 in restitution for sending millions on unsolicited e-mails in violation of the Can Spam Act.

Soloway pleaded guilty in March to mail and e-mail fraud and tax evasion 10 days before his trial was set to start.

He is the second person to be convicted under the Can Spam Act. The first was Adam Vitale who was sentenced by a New York judge to 30 months in prison last week.

Though Soloway reportedly apologized to U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman for his actions, government prosecutors—who sought a nine-year sentence—contended he never truly took responsibility for his crimes.

“Soloway has never expressed any, much less ‘true,’ remorse for his crimes, nor has he ever acknowledged even the existence of his victims, except t attack and deride them,” wrote U.S. attorney Jeffrey Sullivan and assistant U.S. attorney Kathryn Warma in a sentencing memo. “Rather, Soloway continues now, as he always has, to cast himself as the victim, with the apparent plan of exploiting the court’s sympathies for him.”

Soloway has a well-documented history of ignoring court orders, abusing those who he allegedly defrauded and bragging he’d never be stopped.

In 2005, Microsoft won a $7.8 million civil judgment against Soloway for spamming through MSN and Hotmail. Microsoft has yet to see a dime of that money.

Also in 2005, Robert Braver, proprietor of a “mom-and-pop” Internet service provider, won a civil judgment of just over $10 million against Soloway and an injunction ordering him to stop sending spam. Braver also has not been paid.

According to prosecutors, Soloway continued spamming right up until he was arrested in May of last year. He reportedly told the court Tuesday he continued spamming in an effort to maintain a lavish lifestyle.

What’s more, Soloway bragged he’d never pay a dime on legal judgments against him in a 2005 post on an online bulletin board.

“Neither I, nor my company will be for filing bankruptcy and Microsoft will not be collecting a single dime from me, nor has anyone ever collected a single dime from me from any lawsuit I have been in,” Soloway wrote.

“The Microsoft lawsuit was the most enjoyable lawsuit I have been in, in a long time. I met up with all of them and had fun through the entire process,” Soloway continued.

“I’ve been in business for over 10 years with the best accountants in the world, and lawyers in all 50 states that know how to run my business legally and protect me from all lawsuits that come my way.. not a concern.. I just pay them a few hours of my work and they take care of the entire cases for me...”

In the case that finally landed Soloway in jail, prosecutors said his company, Newport Internet Marketing, defrauded customers by offering to send bulk e-mail on their behalf, or to sell them software so they could do it themselves.

Both options resulted in millions of spam e-mails and did not generate the sales for customers Soloway advertised, prosecutors alleged. When customers complained, Soloway would threaten to charge them more fees and refer them to collection agencies, prosecutors said.

For example, according to an affidavit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Soloway sent the following message to one dissatisfied customer: “If you dispute the charge your debt will be forwarded to our collection agency with an additional $250 service charge by them, which if not paid will be forwarded to the 3 US Credit Agencies, in turn negatively affecting your credit rating for the next 7 years not paying said debt owed, and will appear on your credit report indicating you refused to pay a $399 debt that you own We do not stand for theft at our corporation.”

Soloway, who suffers from Tourette’s disorder, was given two months to work out medication issues before he reports to prison.