According to dozens of news stories filed in June 2009, Alan Ralsky and a half dozen of his associates pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering charges related to tens of millions of junk emails they dumped into email inboxes, earning as much as $3 million in the summer of 2005 alone through penny stock manipulation.

Many of the articles suggested that Ralsky - facing 87 months in federal prison as well as fines - might be willing to rat out additional accomplices in return for a reduced sentence.

While the US Department of Justice release on the case noted that the court would be setting a date for sentencing, many of the published news stories set the date as October 29, 2009. That was last Thursday.

So what happened?

I put a call into the US Dept of Justice asking for an update.

- G