Attorney General Christine Gregoire's office estimates that Jason Heckel, 28, of Salem, sent as many as 20,000 unsolicited e-mails to Washington residents in 1998, trying to sell a $39.95 booklet called "How to Profit from the Internet."
The case was the first brought after the Legislature banned commercial e-mail with misleading information in the subject line, invalid reply addresses or disguised paths of transmission.
Judge Douglass North ordered Heckel to pay a $2,000 fine and more than $94,000 in legal fees.
Heckel didn't appear in court. In a written statement he said he never intended to break the law, and that he made only about $680 from book sales.
Heckel's lawyer Dale Crandall said he plans to appeal, and argued that state anti-spam laws violate the U.S. Constitution's protection of interstate commerce.
"It would create a patchwork of laws that would be impossible to keep up with," Crandall said.
Gary Gardner, executive director of the Washington Association of Internet Service Providers, one of the anti-spam law's backers, said he hoped the fine is the beginning of a new push to enforce the law.
"Our goal was never to make any money on this stuff," Gardner said. "It's to put these people out of business."
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