Latest Legal News from the Criminal Courts of Los Angeles, California and the U.S.

June 19, 2007

‘PHISHER’ SENTENCED TO NEARLY SIX YEARS IN PRISON AFTER NATION’S FIRST CAN-SPAM ACT JURY TRIAL CONVICTION

An Azusa man who was the first person convicted by a jury under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 for operating a sophisticated “phishing scheme” has been sentenced to 70 months in federal prison for committing identity theft, credit card fraud, witness harassment and other offenses.

Jeffrey Brett Goodin, 47, was sentenced Monday afternoon by United States District Judge Christina A. Snyder in Los Angeles. In addition to the prison term of nearly six years, Judge Snyder ordered Goodin to pay $1,002,885.58 to the victims of his phishing scheme, including nearly $1 million to Earthlink.

Goodin was found guilty on January 12 after a week-long jury trial. The jury found that Goodin sent thousands of e-mails through an Earthlink Internet connection to America Online users that appeared to be from AOL’s billing department. The e-mails prompted the AOL customers to “update” their personal and credit card information on phony AOL webpages that Goodin controlled. Goodin then used his victims’ personal and credit card information to make unauthorized credit card purchases.

It cost Earthlink nearly $1 million to detect and combat Goodin’s phishing schemes. After being indicted on federal charges in the phishing scheme, Goodin harassed an individual who had cooperated with authorities by posting intimidating messages to a website commemorating the death of the cooperator’s sister.

While on pretrial release, Goodin also failed to appear at a court hearing, and special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had to track him down to execute a failure-to-appear arrest warrant.

In addition to the CAN-SPAM Act conviction, Goodin was sentenced on 10 other counts, including wire fraud, aiding and abetting the unauthorized use of an access device (credit card), possession of more than 15 unauthorized access devices, aggravated identity theft, misuse of the AOL trademark, attempted witness harassment and failure to appear in court.

This case was investigated by the Ontario Police Department and the Electronic Crimes Task Force, which is comprised of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service.

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CALIFORNIA CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER

JOSEPH SHEMARIA

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Latest Legal News from the Criminal Courts of Los Angeles, California and the U.S.