In April 2001, Kremen was awarded the $65 million judgment against Stephen Cohen, who was found to have stolen the domain name in 1995 by sending a forged transfer letter to Network Solutions.
Cohen appealed, but according to James Wagstaffe, Kremen's attorney, he was discredited “mainly because he is a fugitive from justice and has blatantly abused the litigation process.”
The judgment represents the likely end of numerous court battles between plaintiff Gary Kremen of San Francisco and Cohen, currently of Tijuana, Mexico, over the rights to the lucrative domain name.
Kremen still awaits the court's decision in a separate appeal against Network Solutions, now a part of VeriSign. He contends that it negligently transferred the domain name to Stephen Cohen, who forged a letter to Network Solutions fraudulently claiming ownership of sex.com.
Judge Kozinski told VeriSign's attorneys, in reference to the bogus letter and its obvious forgery, "I mean, this is really sloppy. You wouldn't approve this if you had seen this letter".