R.P. Ventures (RPV), the owner of a CECash email list, has been awarded a $2.8 million judgment by a U.S. District Court in Nevada, which found Eric Suchomski, aka BigMike9712 and picpile, liable for offering to sell a customer email list on webmaster chat board GFY.
“The people who traffic in these lists know what they’re doing is wrong and we’ve been very diligent on two fronts – going after the people who sell the list and people who purchase the list,” RPV’s legal affairs director Guy Mizrachi told AVNOnline.com.
The judgment included $2,340,000 in actual damages, $500,000 in punitive damages, disgorgement of profits and an award of plaintiff’s attorney fees and costs.
Suchomski did not have legal representation and did not appear in court since early in the proceedings.
“He’s denying that he was ever served with any of these documents, which was incorrect. We did everything to the letter of the law; served him at his last known address and he, quite frankly, had our telephone numbers and knew where to contact us, if he wanted to. He just decided, I guess, that he didn’t want to participate,” Mizrachi said.
The CE list allegedly contained 12 million email addresses, which company executives believed were obtained by Suchomski hacking into their computer system prior to July 30, 2003. Suchomski was selling the emails on GFY for $750 per million and had apparently sold 4 million before an agent of RPV offered to purchase the rest, according to the initial complaint filed by the company on August 8, 2003. BigMike9712’s real identity was discovered when he sent RPV’s agent his home phone number and bank account information to complete the transaction.
The judgment found Suchomski liable for misappropriation of trade secrets, conversion, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and for misappropriation of computer data in violation of federal law for trying to sell what is known as the CE list.
The question now is, will RPV ever see any of the judgment?
“It’s impossible to say at this stage. We haven’t done any of our homework as far as an asset search, but we will be hiring the proper people to enforce this judgment,” Mizrachi said.
The company previously settled with an individual from New Jersey for an amount in the tens of thousands, according to Mizrachi, for purchasing the list and RPV plans to continue to protect themselves.
“We are diligently protecting our interests and whenever we do find out we will bring the full force of the law against these individuals,” Mizrachi said.
In addition to the CECash case, AVNOnline.com also found that EpicCash has filed a case against Suchomski.
“We did have some dealings with him. All that I can disclose right now is that we are pursuing legal action against Eric Suchomski,” EpicCash’s Media told AVNOnline.com. “We can't really go into details of the claim as advised by our lawyers.”
Suchomski did not return phone calls seeking comment.
