Yes they can. And the scammrs just turn around and sign up for a new email account. As I understand it, some of them have a few in reserve just in case someone turns them in and their account gets deleted. In fact, its not unusual for one single scammer to change email addresses several times over during our correspondence.
Thanks...BTW..a great article...you should submit it for publication..anywhere from National review online, or even the mag.. to the NY Post..it's a great story..
I once had a scammer bouncing to four different email accounts. The first was the one set up with his fake bank website. When that site was killed, he set up a new site with a new email addres. That one went down within 24 hours, so he set up a mail.com address. When I had that shut down, he went to a yahoo.com address.
Unfortunately, I'm unable to continue the scam until I have electricity restored to my home, so I can't kill the latest incarnation.