arg

A common criminal? He's no genius, but you're not giving the man his due. He screwed *hundreds* of thousands out of money, made a complete mockery of the legal system from beginning to end, and got away with it! Over a million other criminals were released from US prisons that year, and none of them had the vision to hijack sex.com. And not everyone can screw surfers that extremely...I'm sure you could, as you run a successful legit biz, but it still takes some skill. He also thwarted the legal system in many different areas, which let him run the biz several more years than should have been possible. He lied in just the right ways, played corporate shell games, laundered money perfectly...an amateur criminal would never have pulled off all these different aspects of his heist.

Try to think of another out-and-out criminal who made that much money while living in the United States in the last couple decades and got away with it. Third world countries have lots of rich, successful despots, but for domestic US crime, ripping people off while dodging US laws, he was a master. The closest I can think of is Kenneth Lay, who with a couple partners defrauded people out of $100 *BILLION*, in part through well-placed legal bribes of over $100 million, but now he's fighting off personal bankruptcy. He's exploited loopholes to keep some money (sank a lot of money into his Texas mansion, and into a life insurance annuity, both of which can't be touched by bankruptcy), so I still consider him a successful career criminal, but his net worth is probably around $50 million now.