In a Department of Justice press release:
Anthony Mowl, the former assistant vice president of business development for Viable Communications Inc. (Viable), and Donald Tropp, the former human resources manager for Viable, pleaded guilty today to engaging in a conspiracy to defraud the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Video Relay Service (VRS) program of more than $2.5 million, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.So, what's the deal here? This is all about corporate greed when one finds him/herself lured by the powerful dollar in using loopholes to defraud the government and other entities to cash in on even more money going into the millions of dollars. Easy money as they thought. Never before has this happened on such a large scale in the Deaf community bilking millions of dollars from the FCC's VRS program. It is an unprecedented event and a lesson for all.
Today, Mowl, 25, and Tropp, 25, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Joel A. Pisano in Trenton, N.J., to conspiracy to commit mail fraud. Mowl and Tropp were indicted on Nov. 19, 2009, along with Viable’s president, John T.C. Yeh; Viable’s vice president of corporate strategy, Joseph Yeh; and the Viable corporate entity.
In pleading guilty, Mowl and Tropp admitted that beginning in approximately fall of 2007 and continuing through approximately January 2009, they conspired with others to pay individuals to make fraudulent VRS phone calls using Viable’s VRS service. According to the pleas, John and Joseph Yeh paid Mowl and Tropp who would then pay people for using Viable’s VRS service. Mowl and Tropp kept a portion of the payments for themselves and distributed the remainder to the paid callers. Viable then caused the submission of fraudulent call minute claims to the FCC, causing the FCC to pay those claims at a rate of approximately $390 per hour for each of the VRS calls that it processed.
According to information contained in the plea documents, Mowl and Tropp admitted that their role in defrauding the FCC’s VRS program led to a total of between $2.5 million and $7 million in fraudulent billing to the program. At sentencing, both Mowl and Tropp face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, as well as mandatory restitution and forfeiture. A sentencing date has not yet been set by the court.
Anthony Mowl, if you remember, was one of the "darlings" who spoke out during the heady days of Gallaudet Protest in 2006. He was also the Copy Editor for Gallaudet's online magazine "The Buff and Blue" whose picture of Mr. Mowl is still there. There is a video of him in YouTube signing away as recent as July 22, 2009 in trying to sell ViableVRS services literally just a few months before he got charged as seen in the November 18, 2009 court docket for fraud.
With names like Anthony Mowl, Donald Tropp and Joseph and Jon Yeh (who founded the famous Rathskeller, a favorite student hangout for many years at Gallaudet) well known in the Deaf community (especially at Gallaudet University where they all graduated beginning with John Yeh in 1971) does this fraud case hits hard the Deaf community. It especially shines a bad light on Gallaudet University as they all are alumni with Yeh at the top of the list. So, embarrassing is this that Deaf Nation, as it would seem, removed a picture of the Yehs (Jason, John, and Joseph Yeh) posing in a picture seen in one of the DN blog article but it is blank except for the captions (a picture of it can be seen in a Google cache.) This case is not just the 4 of them but are part of the 26 people involved in this fraud case. And so I ponder, what are the odds that many of the 26 involved also graduated from Gallaudet University since the VRS center is located in Rockville, Maryland, not far from Gallaudet University?
One thing for sure, this is all a big black eye on the Deaf community and Gallaudet University.
5 comments:
It definitely puts a bad light on the deaf community, yet, many in the deaf community are upset. At the same time, there are those in the deaf community that are trying to defend Mowl, Tropp and Yeh by reasoning that they've done so much for the deaf community. (I do not know any one of them, never heard of them either except Yeh via stories on his "success" in various media.)
Even deaf people Like one commenter said over at MZ's post, did not condone and reflects the majority (so far as I've seen):
"To try to say that padding/fabricating/bloating, etc phony phone calls is something they didn’t know is wrong tells me something about your own Mommies and Daddies"
Then you had another commenter that said:
"Anthony Mowl was following his daddy’s footstep.. Daddy embezzled out of another state and just laughed it off.
Anthony is laughing his stupidity as well..
Runs in the family."
Unfortunately, this all DOES put a bad light on the deaf community. However, let's not assume that every deaf individual in the deaf community condones these acts. Many do not and many do not bother with the blogs. Many are extremely upset that a bad light has been shone on them.
The 26 people are not all related to Gallaudet, obviously. I don't know if this would put a bad light on Gallaudet. It definitely puts a bad light on VRS itself.
VRS has a history that did not start with Yeh. I had no idea Yeh founded Rathskeller. That's news to me. I liked the original Rathskeller, and that is gone forever..when they moved it to the first floor of the Student Union building, I'd just about barfed.
However, I'm trying to understand where you are going with all that. Other than to assume you're connecting the dots between Gallaudet/Rathskeller/Yeh/Alumni/Viable/VRS :)
Here's the problem. VRS industry is a fast growing money making venture. There's lots of money involved, coming from surcharges. Minutes are fabricated in order to get more dollars. That's GREED.
Viable obviously is not the only VRS company guilty of that practice.
Again, Viable will NOT be the only company indicted. The investigation is not over. When more gets indicted, you will find many CEO that has no relation to Gallaudet. However, you might find a few upper management that does show relations, but also NTID and perhaps CSUN. Think about it, the majority of Gallaudet graduates have a hard time finding jobs and the VRS companies are one of the very few that is easily accessible to those graduates of Gally and NTID (other than the United States Government). So, it would seem to make sense that you will find many being an alumni of both institutions.
Also another thing that many rumors are saying is that this practice has been going on for a while, before Viable got involved in VRS business. Viable isn't as big as the other VRS companies. I'm willing to bet, we will see more of this in the coming year or two. This is purely my opinion.
I'm more disgusted that their mommies and daddies didn't even bother to instill values/morals on their deaf children. Then again, GREED does strange things to some people...deaf or not.
Gina
Mowl was also the one who wrote in DeafDC about his cousin dying from Iraq war wounds.
That fact and him being a minor figure during the 2006 Gallaudet protests have very little to do with what's happening with Viable.
I never said that his background had to do anything with Viable other than a connection with the same university.
Mike,
Here's a link to a website you might find interesting as it relates to VRS and greed, especially Viable and its upper management. We know that if people are afraid to reveal who they are, chances are more likely it's true, credibility shouldn't be an issue. I'd dismiss the connection to Gallaudet (I have no great accolades for that school). But, if you were to tell me there's certain connection to a certain Greek group, I wouldn't argue with that.
http://deafvictims.blogspot.com
Gina
Understand, read no further about the connection to Gallaudet as nothing more than them being alumni of that school. Other than that thanks for the link!
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