FCC Suspends 7 Convicted Fraudsters from E-Rate Program
The FCC on Wednesday suspended seven individuals convicted of E-rate fraud from participating in the program and started a proceeding to permanently bar them from the program. All pleaded guilty last year to defrauding the E-rate program in connection with funds provided to private religious schools in Rockland County, New York.
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The seven are Peretz Klein, Ben Klein, Moshe Schwartz, Simon Goldbrener, Sholem Steinberg, Aron Melber and Susan Klein. They were sentenced last year in the Southern District of New York, with penalties ranging from 48 months in prison for Peretz Klein to time served for Susan Klein.
“Fraud, and anyone who would commit it, has no place in FCC programs,” said Patrick Webre, acting chief of the FCC Enforcement Bureau. “These programs have important purposes, and those purposes do not include enriching grifters,” he said.
“In return for their participation in the scheme to defraud the E‑Rate program, certain schools and school officials received a variety of improper benefits” from the defendants, DOJ said. These included “a percentage of the funds fraudulently obtained from E-Rate for equipment and services that were not, in fact, provided to the schools; free items paid for with E-Rate funds but not authorized by the program, such as cellphones for school employees’ personal use and alarm systems and security equipment (which the E-Rate program does not authorize) installed at the schools; and free services for which the E-Rate program authorizes partial reimbursement (such as internet access) but for which the schools did not -- contrary to their statements in filings -- make any payment at all.”