Sanford Wallace, 47, of Las Vegas confessed in Federal Court of San Jose, California, that he had accessed about 500,000 Facebook accounts and sent uninvited ads disguised as friend requests over a three-month period, said U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag on Monday. Wallace accepted that he had accessed Facebook’s computer network on three occasions between November 2008 and February 2009 so that he could send the spam messages. He also confessed that he infringed a court order that stated he could not access Facebook’s computer network, says Haag. As a result, he was charged with fraud and criminal contempt. The move to prosecute Wallace relates to a complaint filed in 2011, which was the result of an FBI investigation. Scheduled to be sentenced in December, Wallace is currently free on bond. He could face up to three years in prison and also a $250,000 fine.
