Charles Booher, a 44 year-old programmer, could get up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for threatening by e-mail and voicemail President Douglas Mackay and staff of marketing company DM Contact Management when his opt-out requests failed.
Booher's threats – which he admits sending – were incited by e-mail spam and pop-ups. DM denies sending spam, but appears to admit to pop-up ads.
Booher, who claims to have suffered testicular cancer, told Reuters that he had mistakenly downloaded software that continuously served pop-up ads to his computer. The ads appear to have been sent on behalf of DM's client, Albion Medical (which told Reuters that spam gives its "reliable, medically approved penis enhancement" pills a bad name).
Booher initially sent polite requests, he says. But, while e-mail users will feel some empathy with Booher's dislike of spam, his requests clearly escalated out of control.
"I am going to go to your office with a hand gun and a knife and kill everybody who works at your office," reads one of his messages. Two months after that one, his e-mails became more graphic: "You mother******* pieces of shit, you scum sucking pieces of mother******* turd shit," began another, before amending his murderous plans to include more guns.
In fact, Booher first hit the headlines in 1998 when he was arrested for posting encryption software on-line in what would have been the first case over US encryption export laws. According to reports, the case did not ultimately go to trial.
Booher was arrested on Thursday, charged with threatening to injure. He has since been released on bail.