DSL Account Deleted In 2009 - Now Receiving Spam Emails To Old ATT Email

Before moving back to Australia in 2009 I used to live in CA. and my DSL was with AT&T and I cancelled the service in November 2009.  My email address used to be xxxx@sbcglobal.net

Before I left CA I went into my AT&T email settings and set any emails that might 'trickle' through to the cancelled AT&T account to be forwarded to another of my email addresses on my own domain which worked fine - I had some emails forwarded for awhile and then nothing until the last few weeks (some 18 months later)

Recently I have been receiving a lot of spam emails at my own email address which were originally sent to my AT&T email address and were forwarded as per the email settings on that account.

I had thought that the AT&T email address xxxx@sbcglobal.net would have been deleted by AT&T after a set amount of time following the cancellation of my DSL back in November 2009, but it does not look like that is true.

I attempted to log into the email for xxxx@sbcglobal.net so that I could somehow prevent the spam emails getting through.  However, when I try to log in it brings back an error message that the password is incorrect.
I tried to reset the password even though I know I am using the correct one and it takes me to a UVerse site where it asks 2 security questions which I have either forgotten or never set up because I do not remember them.

I have worked my way through the AT&T My Account site and found a link which let me log in to "my old AT&T accounts" so that I know I am using the correct password. That takes me to a page titled Account Overview which displayed my old xxxx@sbcglobal.net address. However when I click the Check Email link on that page and try to log in I get the incorrect password message.

I need to either be able to log in to change/delete the email forwarding or get the email account xxxx@sbcglobal.net deleted.

I used the "Chat With AT&T" feature and the consultant informed me that my old account was now classified as an AT&T free email account since I have no actual accounts with AT&T.

I think that is slightly incorrect because I am able to log in to the AT&T account site as if the account was still active.

I also would like to know why after such a long time all these spam emails started to arrive?

Thanks in advance for any help with this matter.
Thank you for your assistance.