By Dominic Maher, 13 July 1998 16:16
NEWS Adam Pletcher has been jailed for six years after an attempt to scare Bill Gates into giving him $5m (£3.1m). The 23-year old said: "I just want to kick myself", because he couldn't come up with any reason why he would want to do what he did. Sentenced on Friday, Pletcher, of Illinois, USA was also told by US District Judge, Barbara Jacobs Rothstein, to pay $400 (£250) into a crime victims assistance fund and spend three years of his six-year term on supervised release. Rothstein said she was bound by law to impose the minimum sentence of 70 months' jail. On 24 March, Pletcher was convicted on four counts for sending threatening mail with intent to commit extortion. In the US this offence carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 (£156,000) fine. At the trial, Pletcher said he was trying out an idea for a book he was going to write. He said he was living out the plot, which he had based on the Sylvester Stallone movie, "Assassins". He sent Gates death threats and multimillion dollar ransom notes over the Internet.
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