DecorMyEyes Merchant Vitaly Borker Sentenced To Four Years In Federal Prison

The New York Times reports Vitaly Borker, the merchant who boasted of being abusive to customers and claimed, inaccurately, that such behavior had a side benefit of producing good rankings in Google, has been sentenced. The sentencing was to four years in federal prison and ordered to pay approximately $100,000 in restitution and fines.

Vitaly Borker who was arrested shortly after boasting in a New York Times article about how abusing customers improves Google rankings, pleaded guilty about 16 months ago. Yesterday, he was finally sentenced and had the opportunity to apologize to his victims and his own family.

“As I stand here before you today, I am genuinely and deeply sorry for the threats that I made,” he said. “To say that I am ashamed of myself is an understatement.” “I had a big mouth and I couldn’t control it,” he continued. As he spoke, he cried and spoke about how his father passed away after his arrest, feeling ashamed how he let his father and family down.

Judge Sullivan was not moved by Borker’s remorse and said “The fact is, these were vile threats,” adding, “you were terrorizing people.” United States attorney, Preet Bharara said, “Vitaly Borker was an Internet shopper’s worst nightmare,” “Borker operated behind the veil of the Internet and aliases to first defraud his victims and then, if they complained, terrorize them with threats, intimidation and harassment.”

Image credit to New York Times

Related Stories:

• DecorMyEyes Merchant Vitaly Borker Arrested After NYT Piece On Google Rankings
• Google’s “Gold Standard” Search Results Take Big Hit In New York Times Story
• DecorMyEyes Owner Vitaly Borker Pleads Guilty, Could Face 6+ Years In Jail
• No, You Can’t Rank Well Just By Cultivating Terrible Reviews
• The Decor My Eyes Fiasco & Local Reviews Tactics

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Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on social media at @rustybrick, +BarrySchwartz and Facebook. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio and disclosures, click over here.