The owner of a Florida telecommunications company was sentenced to five years in jail after pleading guilty to stealing from the government program known informally as “Obama phone,” which provides cheap phone services to low-income consumers.
Q Link Wireless LLC and its 51-year-old CEO, Issa Asad, pled guilty last year to conspiring to conduct wire fraud and steal federal funds from the Lifeline program, the Department of Justice said.
The program, which began in 1985 and was expanded under Obama, offers subsidized mobile service to the underprivileged. It was extensively attacked during the 2012 election, when a viral video surfaced showing a lady in Cleveland alleging she and her companions were handed “Obama phones.”
Fox Business noted that some telecommunication providers with Lifeline contracts welcomed the moniker, but the government did not.
Asad was sentenced to five years in jail, and he and the corporation were required to pay financial penalties and reparations totaling more than $128 million, according to the agency.
Separately, Asad pled guilty to money laundering from a government credit scheme designed to help struggling companies amid the COVID-19 epidemic.
Under the plea agreements, Asad and Q Link agreed to pay the Federal Communications Commission about $110 million in reparations. Asad also paid a nearly $17.5 million criminal fine for profits derived from Q Link’s phone service plan.
The DOJ stated that this was one of the highest financial fines imposed by the FCC in its history.
Asad also paid the Small Business Administration about $1.7 million in restitution for laundering loan profits from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) during the outbreak.
According to the DOJ, he confessed to using PPP money for house building, a Land Rover payment, his personal American Express card, property taxes, jewelry, and university gifts.
Asad and Q Link acknowledged in court to defrauding the FCC’s Lifeline program.
Between 2012 and 2021, Asad and Q Link presented inaccurate information about their Lifeline clients and submitted many bogus claims for government reimbursement. They also admitted to keeping Lifeline monies that they were not entitled to and misled the FCC about the company’s compliance with program guidelines.
