US man faces jail time for spamming Facebook users

The Las Vegas man known as the “Spam King” is now facing a stretch behind bars after pleading guilty to spamming tens of millions of people on Facebook -despite being legally barred from doing so.

Sanford Wallace leaked 500,000 Facebook accounts.

So far, Wallace has been fined well over $4 million, and Facebook also won $711 million in damages in a 2009 lawsuit against the infamous “spam king”.

He then used that information to log into their accounts and post spam messages on their friends’ Facebook walls, according to the indictment.

As the posts came from a supposedly trustworthy source, many users clicked on the links contained in them, which directed them to websites which paid Wallace for each visitor.

Appearing in federal court, Wallace admitted to accessing Facebook’s computer network to send the spam messages on three separate occasions. Back in 2009, Wallace was barred from accessing Facebook following a lawsuit from the social network.

He was released on bond to be sentenced on December 7.

At the end of a two-year FBI investigation, a grand jury did press criminal charges and charged him with electronic mail fraud, damage to protected computers and criminal contempt.

Wallace’s lawyer, William Burns, has not commented on Wallace’s plea as of yet.