Sex.com thief arrested: Stephen Cohen nabbed after five years on the run

[mandy]

The con-man who stole the most valuable domain name in the world, Sex.com, has been arrested by Mexican police and handed over to US agents after nearly six years on the run

Cohen stole Sex.com in October 1995 through an elaborate scam. Cohen then ran the site at an estimated $100m profit until the domain was finally handed back to Kremen by the court in November 2000...

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/28/..._arrested/

[jezebel]

I betcha he lived very well indeedy the past decade but payback is gonna be a bitch 

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=jezebel link=topic=1010.msg3912#msg3912 date=1130535003]
I betcha he lived very well indeedy the past decade but payback is gonna be a nasty kangaroo 
[/quote]

I read somewhere that between 1995 and his conviction in 2000 the site generated almost $100 million in revenues from selling porn ads.  Payback is going to be the $65 million (now $82 million with interest) judgement he was ordered to pay 5 years ago

[mandy]

He may just have sold it for $14m, but the owner of the world's most valuable domain name, Gary Kremen, now intends to spend his time recovering the $65m he is still owed by the con-man who stole the domain 10 years ago.

Kremen sold Sex.com to Escom for $14m on Wednesday but retains the technology he has built behind it since November 2000, plus a trademark for the name Sex.com.

Kremen had originally registered Sex.com in May 1994 but it was stolen by lifelong con-man Stephen Cohen from under his nose in October 1995. Cohen spent the next five years battling to regain control of the domain...

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/20/...continues/

[jezebel]

[quote author=mandy link=topic=1010.msg8146#msg8146 date=1137919813]

He may just have sold it for $14m, but the owner of the world's most valuable domain name, Gary Kremen, now intends to spend his time recovering the $65m he is still owed by the con-man who stole the domain 10 years ago.

[/quote]

If I sold something for $14 million I'd spend my time on a tropical island not in a court room. 

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=jezebel link=topic=1010.msg8160#msg8160 date=1137948497]

If I sold something for $14 million I'd spend my time on a tropical island not in a court room. 
[/quote]

So would I.  Both of us obviously failed our Greed 101 classes. 

[mandy]

Domain Name Journal has an article and update on Gary Kremen and Sex.com

Be Careful what You Wish For: The Continuing Saga of Gary Kremen and Sex.com

Just about everyone in the domain business dreams of one day selling a name for enough money to retire on. A few weeks ago it happened for 42-year-old Gary Kremen. He sold sex.com in a cash and stock deal worth at least $12 million to fulfill a burning desire to be rich that dated all the way back to his high school days in Skokie, Illinois. For most people that's the happy ending and the story would stop right now. However, for Kremen the sale of sex.com is just the midway point in a journey that has already taken him to hell and back on a quest for justice that may never end.

http://dnjournal.com/cover/2006/march.htm

[jezebel]

for Kremen the sale of sex.com is just the midway point in a journey that has already taken him to hell and back on a quest for justice that may never end.

I said it before and I'll say it again, and enjoy the $14 million!

[mandy]

A related article: the sex.com story will be published as a book.

The decade-long tussle over the world's most seductive internet address is a retelling of the Trojan war story for the digital age...

I never stole it. He stole it!" cries Stephen Michael Cohen, pointing wildly at the man who had been chasing him for over a decade. "It was you guys who went into court and explained that there was some cockamamie list and therefore he was the owner. The name sex.com has always been mine." The cockamamie list referred to is the internet's most valuable document: a list of the owners of all the internet domain names ending with ".com".

And the owner of the dotcom mentioned - the infamous sex.com - is the man responsible for making all those millions of domains into property in the eyes of the law. On January 19 this year, Gary Kremen made the most of his extraordinary legal victory by selling that property for a record $12m (£6.3m)...

Kieren McCarthy's book Sex.com will be published by Quercus Publishing on November 2.

full article: http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/...64,00.html
the book's web site: http://www.sexdotcom.info/

[jezebel]

Despite being ordered to hand over Cohen's IP "address block", the company in charge of them, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (Arin) has refused to do so. So Kremen is suing it, and Arin is fighting back. The parallels to the sex.com fight are startling.

Asked if he intends to do the same to the IP address as he did to the domain name and make it legal property - able to be bought, sold, traded and stolen - Kremen is unequivocal: "Yes."

It would really shake things up if he wins that battle.  :blinkie: