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Ex-chair of FCC broadband committee gets five years in prison for fraud
The former head of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) was sentenced to five years in prison for defrauding investors.
Elizabeth Ann Pierce was CEO of Quintillion, an Alaskan telecom company, when she lied to two investment firms in New York in order to raise $270 million to build a fiber network. She also defrauded two individual investors out of $365,000 and used a large chunk of that money for personal expenses.
Pierce, 55, pleaded guilty and last week was given the five-year prison sentence in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, US Attorney Geoffrey Berman announced. Pierce was also "ordered to forfeit $896,698.00 and all of her interests in Quintillion and a property in Texas." She will also be subject to a restitution order to compensate her victims "at a later date."
Pierce's industry experience helped her land the top spot on Pai's broadband advisory committee in April 2017. But she left Quintillion in July 2017 as her scheme unraveled, and she resigned from the FCC advisory panel. Pai appointed a new chair for his committee two months later; he thanked Pierce for her service, saying she did "an excellent job" chairing the committee and "wish[ed] her all the best in her future endeavors."
[...] The FCC committee that Pierce used to lead has repeatedly been criticized for favoring the interests of industry over the public at large. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo quit the group in January 2018 out of frustration that its recommendations favor the interests of private industry over municipalities.
The committee has also pushed policy that would benefit telecom companies at the expense of other tech companies. In December 2018, the committee urged states to impose new taxes on Netflix, Google, Facebook, and many other businesses that require Internet access to operate. The resulting funding would have been transferred to ISPs via grants that subsidize private broadband providers' network construction. (Pai didn't back the tax proposal.)
The BDAC is continuing its work, with the FCC saying it will "craft recommendations for the Commission on ways to accelerate the deployment of high-speed Internet access... by reducing and/or removing regulatory barriers to infrastructure investment and strengthening existing broadband networks in communities across the country."
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 26 2019, @04:26PM (9 children)
Eight years of Obama's FCC and no Felony convictions. No, putting actual criminals in the FCC is not business as usual.
(Plus, we got Net Neutrality out of Obama's FCC)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Wednesday June 26 2019, @05:17PM (7 children)
we got Net Neutrality out of Obama's FCC
That's funny. You did not. Never went through congress. It was as phony as a three dollar bill.
No, putting actual criminals in the FCC is not business as usual.
Yes it is. Most just don't get caught, or are conveniently covered up, or shuffled back into "private" sector. Today, people are just sloppy and uncouth.
Eight years of Obama's FCC and no Felony convictions.
Yeah, and no convictions in the giant bank fraud at the time either. Even now only the small fish are being netted. The big boys remain untouchable. They all have insurance. Your numbers game means nothing. All the important people will skate, as always.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 26 2019, @05:56PM (6 children)
Guilty until proven innocent, eh?
It's interesting how your standards in that arena change so frequently.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday June 26 2019, @06:04PM (5 children)
Guilty until proven innocent, eh?
For positions of authority, yep. The rules are reversed. For those jobs, you have to prove yourself squeaky clean. We have the right to put them into a glass house and watch their every move. The Sword of Damocles must hang over all their heads. That has always been my standard. Your partisanship is fogging your vision.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 26 2019, @06:11PM (4 children)
I guess you don't count the Presidency and the Supreme Court as positions of authority, then.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday June 26 2019, @06:17PM (3 children)
What gave you that idea? What's stopping you from prosecuting them?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 26 2019, @06:24PM (2 children)
The guy Trump appointed to head the Department of Justice is what's stopping them.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday June 26 2019, @06:30PM (1 child)
Well then, find somebody to replace Trump, but try to avoid repeating past failures and charades this time, if you want to win.
And you don't need the DOJ to start impeachment proceedings, so what's up with that? Is discovery a brick wall?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @05:54PM
No, but "Party before Country" is.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 27 2019, @12:41AM
You may be thinking the FCC is about ensuring good governance but it is not.
Like most of your regulators, it is in place to ensure the money continues to flow from the working class to the ruling class.