another fbi prosecution

[Bob Bruen, MIT Lab for Nuclear Science]

 The Chronicle of Higher Education (Dec 8, 1995) page A21 reports that
 Monmouth University (West Long Branch, New Jersey; http://www.monmouth.edu) 
 sophomore Dominick LaScala was charged last week in federal court with two 
 counts of computer fraud.
 
 Dominick had his campus account taken away after other users complained
 that he had been "advertising business proposals inappropriately on line."
 The FBI alleges that he then sent 24,000 email messages in one day from a
 commercial account (unamed) to Monmouth's system.. This denial of service 
 attack was successful for about 5 hours. He is facing six(6) years in prison 
 and a up to $350,000 in fines (1.20 years/hr and and $70,000/hr). 
   
 His lawyer (Kenneth Weiner) claims that "even if his client sent the mail 
 bomb" since no damage was done to the system, he could not be convicted 
 under the computer fraud statute. He also claims that prosecutors are trying 
 to make an example of his client. The university is still trying to figure 
 out whether he can be punished under the university code of conduct.