CEDAR RAPIDS – A man who owned a social media company and planned to steal an Internet domain name by force was convicted last week and faces 20 years in prison. According to CNN, a jury found Rossi Lorathio Adams II guilty for hiring his cousin to break into a house in Cedar Rapids and force the transfer of an Internet web address by its current registrant at gunpoint.
Adams cousin, Sherman Hopkins Jr., was charged with first-degree burglary, first-degree robbery and first-degree kidnapping, and had already been sentenced to 20 years in prison last year; however, Adams was tried separately as at the time of the arrest police only ‘suspected’ the involvement of a third party as the victim and suspect had no known connection and were seeking information on who may have hired Hopkins to pull off the scheme; looks like they eventually found him.
The domain name the convicted men were after was <doitforstate.com> which Adams wanted for his social media company “State Snaps” and failed to convince the current owner of the domain to sell or transfer it to him according to court documents.
When Hopkins broke into the home of his 26-year-old victim he forced him to his computer at gun-point, threatened him to log into his domain registrar account and gave him a demand letter containing instructions on transferring the domain. The victim grabbed the gun and began firing on his attacker hitting him twice; when police arrived both men were suffering from gunshot wounds.
Adams remains in custody pending his sentencing which is expected to be 20 years in lock-up, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive of Internet Marketing Services Inc. He specializes in Website Monetization, authored a ‘how to’ book called ‘‘Mastering Your Website’, and is a key player in several Internet related businesses through his search engine strategy brand Searchen Networks®
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