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Jeremy Jaynes, 30, was convicted by a jury last November with a recommendation that he be sentenced to nine years in jail. Judge Thomas Horne has agreed.

During his career as one of the world's most prolific spammers, the prosecution claimed that James amassed a fortune of some $24 million. According to prosecutors, he was churning out up to a million emails a day. Despite a response rate of 0.3 per cent he was bringing in around $750,000 a month.

Amongst the 'products' offered via his mass emailing were pornography, fake products and work-at-home

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schemes which purported to allow people to earn up to $75 an hour working from home. The prosecution had told the jury that in a single month Jaynes had received 10,000 credit card orders - each for the scam.

Although a resident of Raleigh, North Carolina, Jaynes's trial took place in Loudon County, Virginia - the home of AOL. He was tried under State Law, which makes it an offence to use false internet addresses and aliases to send mass emails. James was convicted under this law of using the AOL servers to send the spoof emails.

However, pending an appeal, James was released by the judge on bail of $1mn. Because the case was the first of its kind, Judge Horne felt that there were constitutional matters that could only be settled by a higher court. He therefore released Jaynes saying 'I do not believe a person should go to prison for a law that is invalid. There are substantial legal issues that need to be brought before the appellate court.'

Defence lawyers say that the whole appeals process could take three to four years.

Jaynes's sister Jessica DeGroot had her conviction dismissed by the Judge. A third man, Richard Rutkowski was acquitted.