WWW- A work-from-home business guru who turned her hand to bombarding tens of millions of email accounts with porn-emblazoned spam is facing a 15-year jail sentence.

33-year-old Jennifer Clason pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the Can Spam Act and one of criminal conspiracy, for her involvement in promoting hardcore sex sites.

Clason is alleged to have masterminded the spree alongside two other men, one of whom owned a number of adult websites that the spam was sent out to promote, the US Department of Justice said.

It added that the third ever prosecution for authoring obscene emails heard how Clason intended to earn commission every time internet traffic was directed to the porn network.

She hoped that an image in each email of adults sexually engaged would convince users to exit their account and enter the sex sites, owned by co-conspirator, James Schaffer.

Instead the influx of illicit junk mail simply prompted over 600,000 AOL customers to complain to the ISP within six-months, from January 2004 to June the same year.

Brian McWilliams, the spam commentator, subsequently discovered that Clason ran a separate internet business that still appears to be in operation, Mommyjobs.com.

The site, which offers young mothers hyperlinks to jobs and incomes at home, even features Clason’s guide on the ten most ‘common scams targeting work-at-home mothers.’

Aside from warning about the dangers of chain letters and mailing lists, Clason’s advisory fails to mention junk, spam or unsolicited email scams of any description.

Graham Cluly of security firm Sophos welcomed the news that Clason faces a prison sentence of five years for each of the offences.

He said: “It’s sickening to think that a woman claiming to help other mums generate an income while looking after their children was also involved in spam campaigns that promoted adult pornographic websites

“The US computer crime authorities are cracking down harder than ever on those responsible for sending spam, and they should be congratulated for bringing another culprit to justice. Firm action is required worldwide to send a strong message to spammers that their activities are simply unacceptable.”

A list maintained by Spamhaus, the non-profit organisation which collects data on the worst spammers worldwide, reports that Clason’s spam operation was one of the 200 largest in the world.