Men Get Prison Terms for Email Scam

L O S   A N G E L E S, Jan. 3 -- Two men received 2-year prison terms forsending a blizzard of 50 million e-mails as part of a scam thatoverwhelmed the nation’s largest Internet providers.

Steve Shklovskiy and Yan Shtok, both 23, also must pay more than$100,000 in restitution for their role in the September 1999scheme, authorities said Tuesday.

The men were sentenced Dec. 27, just over a year after theypleaded guilty to fraud charges. Two others were sentenced toprobation in July.

Authorities said Shklovskiy and Shtok devised a way to usepersonal computers equipped with commercially available software to“harvest” electronic mail addresses.

They then sent a mass e-mailing, asking recipients for a $35“processing fee” in exchange for a chance to work at homestuffing envelopes.

More than 12,000 people were duped. Internet providers,including AOL, AT&T and Mindspring, were besieged by customercomplaints and their systems were threatened by the overload.

The plea agreements require the men to reveal to the Internetproviders how they accomplished their scheme.