10:10 a.m. Aug. 27, 2001 PDT TACOMA, Washington -- The judge didn't just throw the book at Jim Bell, he threw it twice and made him pay for extra damages.
Bell, the Libertarian essayist and contributor to the Cypherpunk mailing list, was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for stalking Jeff Gordon, a federal agent who had been investigating his activities.
He was given two consecutive sentences of five years each, meaning that he will not begin to serve the second sentence until the first one is over. Most often people convicted of multiple charges in a single trial serve their sentences concurrently, so that both begin and end at the same time.