If you will reread the portion of the article Larry posted, you will notice that the defendents used their spam to commit 10,000 credit card frauds. Granted, they were only $39.95 each, so not one of them alone amounted to felony, but add them up and they do.

Think of it as grand theft auto with a computer.

I agree that 9 years for financial crimes in a society whose average sentence for rape is about 5 years is stupid. The answer to that, in my opinion, is to require serious community service for the financial crimes, plus restitution to the victims, and to send the rapists away until they're too old and impotent to rape anything. Hit 'em where it hurts. Thieves are in it for the money, so you take the money away.

But that's just me.