Posted on 10/28/2005 3:45:37 PM PDT by Panerai
The con-man who stole the most valuable domain name in the world, Sex.com, has been arrested by Mexican police and handed over to US agents after nearly six years on the run. Stephen Michael Cohen was arrested on an immigration violation by Mexican authorities and turned over to the US border patrol yesterday, the LA Times has reported. Cohen is being held without bail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego, according to deputy marshal Tania Tyler of the US immigration service.
Cohen is wanted in the US for failure to pay $65m in a court judgement reached in April 2001. The judgement was the result of a five-year court battle by the original owner of the domain, Gary Kremen, which nearly bankrupted the entrepreneur and founder of the net's biggest dating site, Match.com. Kremen was awarded the sum in compensation after Cohen stole Sex.com in October 1995 through an elaborate scam. Cohen then ran the site at an estimated $100m profit until the domain was finally handed back to Kremen by the court in November 2000.
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
Is it true that Sex.com was first registered way back in 1978?
It's not clear from the article what criminal act this guy committed or is charged with. Or is he going to serve his time in debtor's prison?
He then used it to run a porn site, which generated up to 25 million hits per day.
As a lawyer, I have actually been following this case. Cohen persuaded Network Solutions that Kremen approved the transfer by forging documents. Of course, Network Solutions never bothered to ask Kremen--thus the second lawsuit.
I think what happened is he sent a latter to ICANN saying he was the true owner, and they forcibly tranferred the domain to him.
Ed
no, it was back in 1994, and the story has been somewhat of a legend in the internet business. It convinced me that doing business with network solutions was a gamble, and is probably one of the many reasons people avoid them whenever possible.
Hopefully the rightful owner can find all of this guy's assets and seize them.
from other stories on this topic, he filed frivolous motions to delay the the judgement, which earned him some contempt citations which may have jail time. And there are likely various charges for flight to avoid whatever, and plus the little fact that he never paid income taxes on the money he made from sex.com
hopefully the rightful owner of the domain can get the money back before the IRS gets their blood.
Mexico "can't find" murderers who have fled there after having killed in the U.S. and yet they find a dude who stole a domain name and turn him over to us?
What am I missing here?
Not only that, but the article says that Mexican authorities arrested him on immigration violations. So Mexico has immigration laws? And they enforce them?
That's most likely because his 'protection' money was all used up.
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