One man who went on a spamming rampage last year is now facing up to 10 years in prison for his cyber harassment. Brandon Apple of British Columbia is currently facing several charges, including that of “mischief in relation to computer data” in which he hounded over a thousand different Twitch channels with bots flooding them with toxic messages.

The CBC is reporting that his attack targeted the above mentioned channels with up to 15,000 plus messages posted on average every 34 minutes, some even showing up to 6000 instances minute, depending on the channel. PC Gamer has even reported a petition before Apple’s identity was known for Twitch to track down the owner of the bots for his participation with spreading  “racism, homophobia, sexual harassment, links to shock imagery, false implications of view-botting and soliciting child sex exploitation material.” This petition then led to Twitch tracing the source back to Apple’s website catsurge.net.

Because of the year’s worth of harassment, he has been hit with a civil restraining order preventing him from creating or selling “any robot, bot, crawler, spider, blacklisting software or other software” with the intent to harass streamers. In addition, his pending charges could result in up to 10 years in prison according to the Canadian Criminal Code.

It’s a  bad time to be in the criminal spotlight, especially so with the incredibly tragic timing of the swatting “prank” gone wrong that led to an innocent man’s death. Because of this, the law is paying an especially watchful eye to events such as these, so it would not be out of the realm of reality for Apple to face maximum sentence. Though no deaths have resulted from his actions, the swatting incident has shed some light on how horribly these types of “jokes” can go wrong. It’s unfortunate, but the timing for his sentencing couldn’t have come at a worse moment.

At the time this article was written, Apple has not yet motioned for a plea regarding these charges – though his next court appearance is slated for February. Do you think jokes like these are funny and the law is taking it too seriously, or do you think enough is enough and that people like Apple should be held accountable? Sound off with your thoughts in the comment section below, and don’t forget to check out DFTG on Twitter for gaming and entertainment news live 24/7.