Gadgetopia

Suspect in AOL theft makes conflicting impressions: An interesting look at the guy who got caught trying to buy AOL screen names from an employee.

…Dunaway was a “very nice gentleman. You’d never expect anything like that,” said neighbor Christo Zaferatos.

“That,” of course, was the swarm of federal agents busting down Dunaway’s door early June 23 and hauling him off in handcuffs. Federal prosecutors accused him of an audacious crime: conspiring with an America Online employee to steal 92 million AOL e-mail addresses later sold to a spammer hawking penis-enlargement pills.

Dunaway ran an online gambling venture, Justice Department prosecutors say, making as much as $20,000 a day, enough to pay the rogue AOL employee $100,000 for the highly sought addresses.