Make 'em cry like a baby, Bob

CLINTON, Iowa — The owner of a Clinton-based Internet service company said Thursday he is going to pursue the collection of as much money as he can from the e-mail spammers against whom he won federal court judgments totaling more than $11 billion.

"I’ll squeeze them for everything they’ve got," said Robert Kramer III, owner of CIS Internet Services, adding that he never pursued the lawsuits "with any empty intentions."

"These people live in multi-million-dollar homes, they put millions into personal bank accounts," he said. "These people do have assets. These people have money in the bank."

Getting the judgment is only the first step. Collecting it gets tricky and can be a long process.

Within the past year, Kramer and his company have been awarded what some say are the largest judgments ever made against computer spammers.

On Dec. 23, a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Iowa awarded Kramer $11.2 billion in a judgment against just one spammer, James McCalla of Florida. McCalla could not be located for comment by the Quad-City Times. Kramer also received a $160 million judgment against National Credit Systems Inc. of New York.

In December 2004, Kramer was awarded more than $1 billion in a judgment against two Florida companies, Cash Link Systems Inc. and TEI Marketing Group Inc., and an Arizona company, AMP Dollar Savings Inc.

In his lawsuit, Kramer was able to prove that the companies and McCalla sent millions of spam e-mails that interfered with his business, caused problems with his equipment and hindered service to his customers.

My only question is... why did Iowa change this law? Sounds like it was a good one.