American Broadband / American Fraud-band.
This may be an article many have seen, but it just appeared today in my daily paper and I'm steaming.
The Lifeline Program began under Bush's second term, but when he left office, the right coined the phrase Obama Phone to deride needy people who deserved a way to communicate, and for emergencies in a new century. The law allows every home to have one phone, either a landline or a cheap cell phone at the government's expense. Needless to say, republicans were overcome with wrought that poor people would abuse the system with widespread fraud.
Enter CEO Jeffrey Ansted of Toledo based American Broadband. Over the years he defrauded the program with thousands of fake identities, spending the money on himself personally. He bought country club memberships, a vacation condo, a Ferrari, and an $8mil private Cessna jet among other things with money intended for the poor.
Then he got caught by the FCC. The first thing he did was quickly pay most of the money back, but the agency levied a $60mil fine against the company anyway. The company, that promises to appeal, is outraged. Not that their CEO stole tens of millions in taxpayer money, but that the FCC would fine them after Ansted "did the right thing" by paying it back. They really said that.
Now I have family in the Lifeline Program, and if any of them lied about their income or their address, I guarantee they too would pay the few hundred dollars back for the flip phone... before serving their time in county.
There's a law for the rich, and one for the poor.
An Ohio company faces a record fine of more than $63 million after allegedly bilking a government aid program out of millions of dollars, some of which went toward funding the lavish lifestyle of the firm’s chief executive, federal regulators said Tuesday.
The proposed fine by the Federal Communications Commission targets American Broadband, a provider of low-income phone service whose agents allegedly created fake or duplicate customer accounts to claim extra federal funding under a program that offers disadvantaged Americans a small monthly discount on phone and Internet service.
Authorities discovered that American Broadband had made more than 42,000 fraudulent claims for funding in one month alone in 2016 — in some cases using the names of dead people or quietly changing the birth dates or Social Security numbers associated with living people.
American Broadband’s chief executive, Jeffrey Ansted, was also held personally liable for the alleged misconduct Tuesday as the FCC accused him of embezzling aid money and using it to pay for luxury goods such as an $8 million private Cessna jet, a $1.3 million Florida condominium and a $250,000 Ferrari convertible. He also used the funds to buy memberships to yacht and country clubs, the FCC said.
Calling Ansted’s behavior “apparent fraud,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the fine is the largest penalty the agency has ever proposed for a violation of its rules governing universal service support. On top of the fine, the company could be subject to further penalties such as refunds of the money it allegedly stole from federal coffers.
“Month after month the company apparently sought funding for accounts that it knew were ineligible to receive Lifeline benefits,” Pai said.
Continued here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/23/this-ceo-allegedly-stole-millions-low-income-phone-subscribers-pay-ferrari-private-jet-florida-condo/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5ee64e3e8f8e
(The above link doesn't mention the recent update that Ansted paid the money back then complained about the harsh fine as seen in my newspaper.)
I suppose before this is over the president will step in and declare Ansted a good ol' boy caught up in some sloppy book keeping and offer a full pardon for "being smart".
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