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Email spammer Robert Soloway described by Microsoft as one of the top ten spammers in the world has been sentenced to 47 months in prison.

Seems like a hard time for spammer these days as recently one of them was sentenced to 21 months but managed to escape from federal prison camp.

Robert Soloway

Soloway was previously sentenced under Oklahoma Fraudulent Use of Electronic Mail statute in 2005, admitted to using a spamming utility called Dark Mailer to send more than 50,000 emails an hour to internet users. The software changed the headers of emails to that of the recipient’s address to fool spam filters.

The prosecution had presented a number of witnesses — including victims and experts from AOL, internet hosting firm Liquid Web and the FBI — to detail the impact of Soloway’s unsolicited emails.

Microsoft has also won a case against Soloway and been awarded $7.8 million in a civil case, but is unlikely to see any financial reward.

Prosecution requested 9 year prison sentence but judge gave him 47 months which is about 4 years because defense was able to prove that he didn’t interfere with individuals PCs, did not try and spread malware and never advertised pornography.

In addition to his sentence he will serve three years probation and do 200 hours of community service. According to Soloway:

I take full responsibility for everything I’ve done. I am sorry for all the people that got the e-mails. I am very embarrassed and ashamed.