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.
Senator Mark Pryor has introduced the Counter Spy Act of 2007 to make it illegal for companies or fraudsters to implant spyware on a person’s computer without consent.
Pryor said spyware raises significant privacy, economic and security concerns for consumers and businesses as companies covertly plant unwanted software on them. Spyware is used to collect information about a consumer’s browsing habits, enable pop-up ads, and/or change a user’s home page. In addition, spyware allows a fraudster to duplicate another website, including financial or retail site where he/she can steal personal information such as credit card numbers.
More documents detailing secret government surveillance of AT&T's Internet traffic have been released to the public as part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) class-action lawsuit against the telecom giant.
Some of the unsealed information was previously made public in redacted form. But after negotiations with AT&T, EFF has filed newly unredacted documents describing a secret, secure room in AT&T's facilities that gave the National Security Agency (NSA) direct access to customers' emails and other Internet communications. These include several internal AT&T documents that have long been available on media websites, EFF's legal arguments to the 9th Circuit, and the full declarations of whistleblower Mark Klein and of J. Scott Marcus, the former Senior Advisor for Internet Technology to the Federal Communications Commission, who bolsters and explains EFF's evidence.
"This is critical evidence supporting our claim that AT&T is cooperating with the NSA in the illegal dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "This surveillance is under debate in Congress and across the nation, as well as in the courts. The public has a right to see these important documents, the declarations from our witnesses, and our legal arguments, and we are very pleased to release them."
EFF filed the class-action suit against AT&T last year, accusing the telecom giant of illegally assisting in the NSA's spying on millions of ordinary Americans. The lower court allowed the case to proceed and the government has now asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss the case, claiming that the lawsuit could expose state secrets. EFF's newly released brief in response outlines how the case should go forward respecting both liberty and security.
"The District Court rejected the government's attempt to sweep this case under the rug," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "This country has a long tradition of open court proceedings, and we're pleased that as we present our case to the Court of Appeals, the millions of affected AT&T customers will be able to see our arguments and evidence and judge for themselves."
Oral arguments in the 9th Circuit appeal are set for the week of August 13.