In a remarkable decision by a Pittsburgh Judge, Sean Tiernan age 29 was spared prison. He was investigated for using a botnet to spam and made money from this. The money he made from this he used to pay for college. He also confessed right away to the FBI investigators when caught.
This is a remarkable decision because usually hackers are not treated well by the system. Spammers typically receive similar poor treatment so for that reason this case is remarkable. This does not mean hackers who use botnets to mine Bitcoin or cryptocurrency will be spared prison like this very lucky Sean Tiernan but it does show that once in a while a judge is lenient.