Enforcement Bureau Calls for Ban on Guel Owning or Assisting Stations
FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin should rule that low-power radio and TV station owner Antonio Cesar Guel lacks the character to hold an FCC license and order him to cease and desist from “operating, controlling, managing or providing any…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
assistance” to any FCC-licensed station, said the Enforcement Bureau in filings in the hearing proceeding (docket 23-267) posted this week. “The preponderance of the evidence” shows that Guel engaged in a sham transfer of his stations to his 17-year-old niece, falsely claimed to be an American citizen repeatedly, and made multiple false statements to the agency for years, even during the current ALJ proceeding, the EB said. Guel has also admitted to many, but not all, of the allegations against him and unsuccessfully sought a summary judgment order to end the proceeding. In depositions and testimony during the hearing proceeding, Guel, his niece and his daughter Maria Guel gave multiple conflicting statements about Antonio Guel’s relationship and level of control of multiple companies and licensees, including Mekaddesh Group Corporation, the Hispanic Family Christian Network and the Hispanic Christian Community Network. All those entities operate from the same address. “Given Mr. Guel’s pattern of brazen material misrepresentations to the Commission,” a cease and desist order “is not only legally authorized, it is necessary,” the EB said. The bureau's filings also ask Halprin to impose a forfeiture against Guel.