Stephen Michael Cohen is an American who gained notoriety after acquiring control of the domain name Sex.com in 1995. He also has citizenship in Mexico, Israel and in the principality of Monaco.Blue, Violet
Sex.com: A URL - All Crime And No Sex
''SF Gate'', 2006-12-21. Retrieved on 2007-08-09. He was later implicated in involvement in running the controversial peer-to-peer service EarthStation 5. Cohen was born in Los AngelesMcCarthy, Kieren
Sex.com and a web of intrigue: Two men’s battle over a domain name shows how far the net has come
''The Sunday Times'', 2007-05-27, via timesonline.co.uk. Retrieved on 2007-08-09. and attended Van Nuys High School in the

Van Nuys Van Nuys () is a neighborhood in the central San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California. Home to Van Nuys Airport and the Valley Municipal Building, it is the most populous neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. History In 1909, t ...

area of Los Angeles. Cohen obtained his

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

degree at the

University of Southern California Law School The USC Gould School of Law, located in Los Angeles, California, is the law school of the University of Southern California. The oldest law school in the Southwestern United States, USC Law traces its beginnings to 1896 and became affiliated with ...

in 1972. In the 1980s, he operated a paid-membership

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as ...

(BBS) called the French Connection, geared toward

swinging Swing or swinging may refer to: Apparatus * Swing (seat), a hanging seat that swings back and forth * Pendulum, an object that swings * Russian swing, a swing-like circus apparatus * Sex swing, a type of harness for sexual intercourse * Swing rid ...

and other sexual topics,Bicknell, Craig
The Sordid Saga of Sex.com
''Wired'', 1999-04-15. and by the late 1980s, he organized swinger get-togethers at a home in Orange County, California. In 1990, he was arrested for operating a sex club in a residential zone; he was found not guilty by a jury verdict.

Sex.com

According to court documents, Cohen fraudulently obtained the lucrative Internet domain name Sex.com in May 1995 from the original registrant, Gary Kremen, who had registered it in May 1994. Cohen obtained the domain by means of a forged letter to domain registrar

Network Solutions Network Solutions, LLC is an American-based technology company and a subsidiary of Web.com, the 4th largest .com domain name registrar with over 6.7 million registrations as of August 2018. In addition to being a domain name registrar, Network S ...

, faxed from Kremen's company "Online Classified", fraudulently stating that Kremen had been dismissed and the firm was abandoning the domain and that Cohen could have it. Network Solutions blindly accepted the fax with no verification and transferred the domain to Cohen, an action that would prove grounds for a later civil suit by Kremen against Network Solutions. It is estimated that Cohen illegally earned

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

100 million between October 1995 and November 2000 from his ownership of sex.com. In April 2001, the court ordered damages of $65 million be paid to Kremen. Cohen left the United States in 2001 and was living in Tijuana, Mexico, when he was arrested on October 28, 2005.Dineen, J. K. Updated Nov. 4, 2005, 1:10 p.m. ET. As of 2011 the amount of damages owed to Kremen had increased to $82 million with interest and Cohen to this date, has refused to pay one penny towards the judgment. Cohen was held in a civil contempt for failure to disclose his assets. He was released from custody on December 5, 2006, by Judge Ware because "Kremen has failed to locate evidence of hidden bank accounts or other assets.” Courts have ruled in Kremen's favor several times since 2006, with evidence that seven individuals, including some of Cohen's family members, and twelve companies were used to help him hide the money.

References

External links

* (BOY) Boyle, Matthew. December 8, 2005, 4:33 PM EST. "Sex.com, drugs and a rocky road: Tracking down the millions owed after the theft of a tangled web domain". CNNMoney.com. /Fortune/News/Technology

* (GLA) Glasner, Joanna. August 14, 2002, 2:00 AM. "Sex.com Takes Aim at Registrar". Wired. /Tech Biz/Media

* (SWA) Swartz, Jon. Posted March 31, 2005, 8:33 PM. Updated 1 April 2005, 8:21 AM. "Appeals court upholds Sex.com ruling". USA Today. /Money

* (VIO) Violet Blue. December 21, 2006. "Sex.com: A URL—All Crime And No Sex". SFGate.com. /Open Source (Column)

*http://www.davidkushner.com/book/the-players-ball/

Additional reading

*David Kushner, ''The Players Ball''. ' NY:Simon& Schuster, 2019 (an account of the conflict between Gary Kremen and Stephen Michael Cohen for control of the internet domain sex.com).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Stephen American expatriates in Mexico Living people Van Nuys High School alumni Year of birth missing (living people)