AOL Wants Spammer's GoldAOL Wants Spammer's Gold

Armed with a court order, America Online was preparing to dig up the Massachusetts yard of the parents of a man it sued for sending millions of unsolicited commercial spam e-mails to AOL users.

Meanwhile, the owners of the yard were preparing Wednesday to go to another court to block the excavation.

The alleged buried gold and platinum bars are suspected of being buried in a two-acre yard in Medfield. But Peggy Greenbaum, the mother of the spammer known as Davis Wolfgang Hawke, told the Associated Press that the family doesn't believe any such gold or platinum bars are buried in the yard.

"I don't care if they dig up the entire yard," she told the AP. "They're just going to make fools of themselves. We certainly wouldn't allow him to put any gold on our property."

Hawke, who has used different names in the past, lost a court case to AOL, which won a $12.8 million judgment. Law enforcement authorities say they have not been able to contact him recently and that he missed a court date.

In its case before the U.S. District Court in Virginia last year, AOL produced receipts traced to Hawke for large purchases of gold and platinum. He made a fortune marketing penis enlargement pills and other e-mail spam over the Internet.