The day DeafDC died.......happy hour, too.

Ever wondered what happened to the once popular DeafDC website that was made up of designated Deaf writers to write on various subjects with many of them related to Deaf culture and whatnot? The last article written was "Song lyrics: Offensive or…??" dated July 13, 2009 according to DeafDC's Twitter. That date is pretty significant considering the fact that DeafDC and Deaf Professional Happy Hour (discontinued) are/were owned by Viable since 2007 according to Rob Rice's post "DeafDC.com Changing Hands" posted in November 2007. On July 24, 2009 Gazette.net announced a story about Viable, a Rockville company, was the subject of a federal investigation which resulted in the arrests of Viable employees.

I'm sure once the story broke last year did DeafDC became radioactive and certainly, perhaps so, writers didn't want to become associated with DeafDC since it was owned by Viable, Inc. At least that'd be a plausible story here. It has since remained in internet limbo since July 13, 2009 with nary a peep from any of the writers in DeafDC. Their collective silence speaks volume.

Mowl and Tropp Plead Guilty to Fraud...will others follow?

Yes, it's 4 days old but this is something I want to address here even though this whole thing started back in July 2009.

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.

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.

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.

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.