Lisa03
08-13-2003, 10:15 AM
BOSTON -- A fit of anger is costing a NASCAR fan plenty.
Michael Melo pleaded guilty in May to a federal misdemeanor charge of damage to a protected computer system for flooding Fox Entertainment with angry e-mails after a Boston Red Sox baseball game pre-empted an auto race he was watching.
Melo already has paid $36,000 in restitution and has to fork over $2,000 more in fines. He admitted that he wrote a computer program that blitzed Boston's Fox affiliate with more than 500,000 e-mail messages.
The e-mails were automatically forwarded to the station's Los Angeles parent company, Fox Entertainment. The network, thinking it was a hacker attack, shut down Internet communication with the affiliate and was forced to spend about $36,000 to clean up after the barrage.
Melo has also been sentenced to six months of home detention for his May 2001 stunt
Michael Melo pleaded guilty in May to a federal misdemeanor charge of damage to a protected computer system for flooding Fox Entertainment with angry e-mails after a Boston Red Sox baseball game pre-empted an auto race he was watching.
Melo already has paid $36,000 in restitution and has to fork over $2,000 more in fines. He admitted that he wrote a computer program that blitzed Boston's Fox affiliate with more than 500,000 e-mail messages.
The e-mails were automatically forwarded to the station's Los Angeles parent company, Fox Entertainment. The network, thinking it was a hacker attack, shut down Internet communication with the affiliate and was forced to spend about $36,000 to clean up after the barrage.
Melo has also been sentenced to six months of home detention for his May 2001 stunt