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Former AOL employee gets 15-month sentence

By Derek Sooman

On August 21, 2005, 3:37 PM

Yesterday afternoon a judge passed down sentence on Jason Smathers, a former AOL employee who stole 92 million screen names and sold them to a spammer. Smathers struck a plea bargain with the District Attorney and agreed to assist the government in tracking down the recipient of the list. In return, he received a 15-month sentence from U.S. District Judge Alvin Hllerstein instead of getting something a lot nastier.

Part of a written statement by Smathers to the court, which attempted to explain his mindset, was read during the trial:

"Cyberspace is a new and strange place. I was good at navigating in that frontier, and I became an outlaw."

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