
A Clinton-based Internet service provider who successfully sued Internet spammers in the past now has been <A HREF="http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/01/04/news/local/doc43bb692ac9e86281138542.txt#top">awarded an $11.2 billion judgment</A> against a Florida man for sending millions of unsolicited emails advertising mortgage and debt consolidation services. The judgment against James McCalla of Florida is the culmination of a multi-defendant lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa in 2003 by Robert W. Kramer III, owner of CIS Internet Services in Clinton. The lawsuit claimed that McCalla sent more than 280 million illegal spam email messages into CIS' network. Kramer's lawsuit initially named numerous defendants, many of whom were weeded out and dropped from the lawsuit over the past couple of years. Other defendants named in the lawsuit, however, including Cash Link Systems of Florida, AMP Dollar Savings of Arizona, and TEI Marketing Group of Florida were ordered in 2004 to pay judgments totaling more than $1 billion to CIS Internet Services. He claimed that under state law in effect at the time, he was entitled to $10 per illegal email.