What you might consider doing is try contacting Ruby Central, or whoever it is that runs Ruby Gems. Even if they can't/won't give you access to the account, I'm wondering if they could/would freeze publishing updates to these gems until the account "owner" proves they are who they say they are. That way they don't risk giving control to someone who is hard to verify (you) and they prevent malware from being uploaded by the person who now controls your email until they verify the you are (which obviously they shouldn't be able to do).