Oprah imitations and ‘black dialect:’ Man faces $13 million fine over racist robocalls
A man made thousands of racist and anti-Semitic robocalls threatening a journalist, attempting to sway a jury and trying to influence elections, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
Now he faces a $12.9 million fine for misusing caller ID.
The “neighbor spoofing” campaigns covered six states in 2018 and involved manipulating the caller ID so that it appeared the calls were local, the FCC said in a news release Thursday. The agency issued the proposed fine after a slew of consumer complaints.
“The caller was apparently motivated by a belief that these actions would result in media notoriety and accordingly would enable him to increase publicity for his website and personal brand,” the release states. “In the process, he apparently broke the law.”
The FCC said the calls violated the Truth in Caller ID Act, which prohibits callers from intentionally misrepresenting their caller ID “with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value.”
According to the release, the man orchestrated six campaigns between May and December 2018 in California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa and Virginia.
The New York Times, the Spokesman Review and Des Moines Register identified the caller as Scott Rhodes, who has been called a “Nazi sympathizer” and white supremacist by anti-hate groups and the media. Rhodes reportedly runs the website and podcast “Road to Power.”
It’s unclear if Rhodes will face criminal charges for the calls, the New York Times reported.
According to the FCC, Thursday’s notice is a proposed action. The caller will be given a chance to respond to the allegations before final action is taken.
The first robocalls — numbering 1,496 — were made in California during the U.S. Senate primary, the release states. The FCC said they attacked a candidate’s Jewish heritage and used “an anti-Semitic trope accusing her of dual loyalties.”
Those calls targeted U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and referred to her as a “traitorous Jew,” the Spokesman reported.
In August 2018, the caller made 827 robocalls to residents in Brooklyn, Iowa, after a local college student was murdered and an undocumented immigrant accused of the crime, according to the FCC.
The Des Moines Register reported the caller pretended to be University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbett, who went missing in her hometown of Brooklyn and was later found stabbed to death.
“The calls talked about a ‘brown horde’ or ‘savages’ and said the murder victim would have said to ‘Kill them all,’” according to the FCC.
Some of her family members reportedly received those calls.
The following month, the FCC said the caller made 750 robocalls to people in Sandpoint, Idaho, attacking the local newspaper — the Sandpoint Reader — and its publisher after they identified him as the caller behind other spoofing campaigns. The calls indicated residents should “burn out the cancer.”
In October 2018, he made 766 calls in Florida while pretending to be a candidate for governor while using “’a caricature of a black dialect’ with jungle background noises,” according to the FCC.
Citing an audio recording of one of those calls, the New York Times reported someone pretending to be Andrew Gillum spoke “about mud huts and unfair policing practices” while drums and monkey noises played in the background.
Gillum was the first black nominee for Florida governor, media outlets reported.
Residents in Georgia also received 583 calls in November 2018 spreading “a racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theory” while imitating Oprah, according to the FCC.
The caller then spammed Charlottesville, Virginia, during James Fields’ trial in December 2018, the FCC said.
Fields was charged in the murder of Heather Heyer after he drove a car into a crowd of protesters and was sentenced to life in prison, the Washington Post reported.
According to the FCC, the robocalls “blamed local officials for the crime” and were reportedly an attempt to influence the jury.
