A new lawyer for Oleg Nikolayenko, a Russian citizen arrested in the United States and accused by U.S. authorities of creating a large network for the distribution of spam, will represent the Russian at the next hearing scheduled for October 4.
NEW YORK, September 13 – RIA Novosti, Larisa Sayenko. A new lawyer for Oleg Nikolaenko, a Russian citizen arrested in the United States and accused by the U.S. authorities of creating a large network for the distribution of spam, will represent the interests of the Russian at the next hearing scheduled for October 4.
This was reported to RIA Novosti by defense lawyer Arkady Bukh, who accepted the case.
Nikolayenko was arrested in early November 2010 at a car show in Las Vegas on FBI charges that from about January 2007 to November 2010 he substituted information in electronic messages and initiated their sending to recipients.
The U.S. side initially claimed that there were more than 500,000 “infected” computers in the network organized by Nikolaenko, as a result of which the daily volume of mailings could reach 10 billion e-mails. US media immediately labeled the Russian as the “king of spam.”
“Nikolaenko denies his guilt. I’m flying out for the first meeting with my client. He is in a serious psychological condition,” Buch told RIA Novosti.
Nikolaenko is being held in the city prison of Milwaukee (Wisconsin). At the hearing on October 4, the defense and the prosecution will be able to present oral arguments on previously stated motions.
“Nikolaenko’s former Lawyer Bukh filed about a dozen motions, but they were considered by the court, mostly in favor of the prosecutors,” Bukh said.
The prosecutor’s office has already filed several charges against the arrested man and the defense expects that new charges may also be filed as is usually the case for federal crimes.
“A trial start date has not yet been set. If convicted, Nikolayenko faces decades in prison with confiscation of property and payment of damages,” Buch said.
Investigators believe that Mega-D, a botnet (a network of infected computers) created by the Russian, sent advertisements for counterfeit Rolex watches, prescription-only drugs, erectile dysfunction medications and herbal remedies whose sale is prohibited by regulatory authorities.
The Mega-D network was defunded by FireEye, an online security company. Google provided the U.S. investigation with a disk of Nikolaenko’s e-mail correspondence.
Источник: https://ria.ru/20110913/436244953.html