AOL previously won a monetary judgment against CN Productions, formerly of Rockford, Illinois, in a 1999 lawsuit. At the conclusion of that original suit, AOL also obtained an injunction permanently barring the company and its president, Jay Nelson, from sending any spam to AOL members.
Two years later, AOL asked a Virginia court to hold the company and its president in contempt, alleging they had violated the court's injunction by continuing to send spam to its members. According to AOL's complaint, the defendants continued for more than a year after the injunction to "transmit hundreds of millions of junk email messages advertising adult web sites" as "part of a complex conspiracy designed to knowingly violate" the court's injunction.
In addition to naming the original parties in its contempt action, AOL also named as co-conspirators more than a dozen other individuals, who, according to AOL's complaint, had conspired with Jay Nelson.
In its complaint, AOL alleged that CN Productions and its conspirators had transmitted over 1 billion junk e-mail messages to AOL and its members; had accounted for 25% of all junk e-mail complaints about adult web sites that AOL received over a two year period; had generated as much as $8 million in illegal gains; and had attempted to conceal their illegal scheme from the courts and AOL through perjury, obstruction of justice, and elaborate, illicit, offshore financial transactions designed to purposefully circumvent US laws and AOL's anti-spam filters.
AOL said the case is the first time that statutory damages have been awarded under an amended Virginia anti-spam statute. That law provides that spammers can be liable for $25,000 for each day they send spam. AOL has brought twenty anti-spam lawsuits against over 100 companies and individuals, but this represents its biggest financial award.