Stupid Phillies fans at work....

Borrowing a line from Shakespeare's "Othello," U.S. District Judge Berle Schiller yesterday said Allan Carlson may have "loved" the Phillies "not wisely but too well."

The judge then sentenced Carlson, a long-suffering Phillies fan with apparent "anger management" problems, to four years in prison for his so-called e-mail "bomb attacks" on Daily News and Inquirer sportswriters and editors, Phillies personnel and others.

The punishment was seven months longer than the maximum term recommended in sentencing guidelines of 33 to 41 months.

Carlson admittedly had hacked into computers in seven states and two provinces of Canada over a 14-month period ending in December 2002, so he could vent about the Phillies.

Prosecutors said Carlson, 41, intentionally spewed tens of thousands of e-mails at times on his targets. A jury earlier this year had convicted Carlson of 79 computer-fraud-related crimes for his illicit e-mail floods.

Schiller required that Carlson, while behind bars, receive psychiatric or psychological counseling for anger management or other diagnosed mental-health problems.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy told Schiller that Carlson, who lived in California at the time of his e-mail campaign, had several convictions for unrelated crimes.

Levy said Carlson had served time in prison for shooting out car windows with a BB gun.

Carlson began his e-mail barrages about two weeks after he left jail in 2001, Levy said.

Carlson has not worked in years and "sponges off his parents," an elderly couple living near Vineland, N.J., Levy said.

As part of his sentence, Carlson must pay $9,275.91 in restitution to the two papers, nearly $2,700 to the Phillies, $2,000 to ESPN and $1,000 to Knight-Ridder Inc.

Knight-Ridder, parent company of the Daily News and Inquirer, had to shut down its e-mail hub in Florida to dispose of often-obnoxious and sometimes racist diatribes aimed at the Phillies management and sportswriters who cover the team, Levy said.

Outside the courtroom, Carlson's attorney, Thomas Ivory, borrowed an adage, often attributed to Mark Twain, to sum up his view of the harsh sentence:

"It just goes to show you, you don't pick a fight with somebody who buys the ink by the barrel."