Spammer: I Want My NASCAR TV

BASKET CASE: Man nabbed for battering Easter Bunny.

APRIL 16--A NASCAR fan, upset that a Boston television station bumped a race in favor of a Red Sox game, retaliated by bombarding Fox TV with more than 530,000 e-mails, shutting down a Fox computer system and costing the network $36,000, according to federal prosecutors who yesterday announced that the spam attack might cost the race fan a year in jail. Michael Melo, who has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge, authored a computer program that repeatedly sent e-mails to Fox via the web site of the network's Boston affiliate, WXFT-TV, according to the below criminal information. Melo's mid-2001 spam attack was apparently triggered by the April 29 preemption of the NAPA Auto Parts 500 (won by Rusty Wallace). WXFT opted to broadcast a Red Sox-Kansas City Royals game from Fenway. But Melo won a small victory that day: the Bosox fell, 11-8, in 11 innings. (3 pages)