Porn and spam, synonymous with email since its inception, have fallen under the spotlight for different reasons as two violators of US anti-spam law have received a five-year sentence.  Jeffrey Kilbride and James Schaffer were convicted of conspiracy, money-laundering, fraud, and transportation of obscene materials, the East Valley Tribune reports.

The spam scan was simple: Kilbride and Schaffer bought email lists and mass-mailed links to porn sites, earning $2 million in the process.  Part of the difficulty in catching the men stemmed from the fact their Phoenix-based business used a server based in Amsterdam, with a fake corporation and bank account in East African island nation Mauritius, and a bank account in the Isle of Man. 

In addition to the jail time, Kilbride and Schaeffer were fined $100,000 each and were forced to return $1.1 million of their profits.  They are also required to pay AOL $77,500 in restitution because of the 1.5 million customers who complained about the spamming.

Bonnie & Clyde, Butch Cassidy & Sundance, Kilbride and Schaeffer?  Intriguing.  Someone in Hollywood is writing a script as we speak.