'Spam King' Soloway changes plea to guilty

A man once desribed as one of the world's top 10 computer spammers has pleaded guilty to federal charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, and failure to file a tax return.

29-year-old Robert Alan Soloway, dubbed "the spam king" by prosecutors, entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Friday to three of the charges listed in a 40-count indictment. The remaining charges were dismissed.

Soloway was arrested last summer. Prosecutors said he used networks of compromised computers to send out millions upon millions of junk e-mails since 2003.

Soloway made hundreds of thousands of dollars from his spamming business, Newport Internet Marketing Corp. When he's sentenced in June, Judge Marsha Pechman will determine how much restitution he must pay. The government already seized at least four of his bank accounts, and Soloway has agreed to take a polygraph test as to his remaining assets.

He could face up to 20 years in prison.