He could go to prison when he is sentenced in January in U.S. District Court in Alexandria because Congress recently beefed up the maximum penalties from six months to two years in prison. Similarly, Gulley was prosecuted under a law that often is used for telephone threats, lawyers said. In a California case, an e-mail harasser was charged under a federal civil rights law. This year, a federal jury convicted Richard J. Machado, a former student at the University of California at Irvine, in connection with a 1996 e-mail he sent to 59 mostly Asian students. Machado already had served a year in jail while awaiting trial and was sentenced to probation.
Legal analysts say they expect to see more criminal cases involving online harassment and stalking.
However, criminalizing e-mail could raise civil liberties concerns. It's not a federal crime to be a jerk. Staff writer Eric L. Wee contributed to this report.