Jason Smathers, 24, from West Virginia, was arrested in June and charged with the theft of 92 million AOL customer screen names and the subsequent sale of the names to spammer Sean Dunaway, 21, from Las Vegas.
Dunaway, according to prosecutors, used the e-mail addresses to market his internet gambling business and then sold the original list on to other internet marketers for up to $52,000. He also sold an updated but smaller list for $32,000.
According to reports, Smathers and prosecutors had reached a plea agreement. This provided that Smathers would plead guilty to the interstate transportation of stolen property, conspiracy and breaches of the CAN-SPAM law – a much-derided Act that came into force in January 2004, targeting deceptive spam messages.
However, when the case came to court on Tuesday, Judge Alvin K Hellerstein of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York refused to accept the part of the plea relating to the CAN-SPAM Act, querying whether Smathers' actions were actually deceptive to recipients of the e-mail messages, as required to constitute an offence under the Act.
"I need to be independently satisfied that a crime has been committed," said Judge Hellerstein, who is now seeking more information and will hold another hearing on 28th January.