A U.S. federal court has restricted access to documents in a case involving a Russian man who has been charged with running a global e-mail spam network.
Oleg Nikolaenko, 23, from Vidnoye south of Moscow, is thought to be behind the notorious Mega-D network, comprising more than 500,000 infected computers.
The network, capable of sending up to 10 billion spam letters a day, was crippled late last year by the FireEye network security company.
A federal court in the state of Wisconsin ruled that the lawyers for Nikolaenko, who pleaded 'not guilty" during the first hearing on December 4, would receive only one copy of case materials, which include investigation reports, witness accounts, video- and audio-recordings.
The documents may be made public only if prosecutors agree to their release.
Nikolaenko is charged with violating the U.S. anti-spam law, the CAN-SPAM Act, by falsifying information in commercial e-mail messages and sending a minimum of 2,500 spam e-mails per day.
The alleged 'King of Spam' was arrested in early November at an auto-show in Las Vegas. If found guilty he faces three years in prison or a $250,000 fine.
The court initially ordered Nikolaenko to be held without bail, as he had been judged a flight risk because of his easy access to cash and his lack of ties to the United States.
Bail could however be granted during the second hearing scheduled for Tuesday, sources close to the case said.
WASHINGTON, December 21 (RIA Novosti)
