CNN reports:
Conservative activists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have agreed to pay $1 million to the New York attorney general’s office and others for running a voter suppression campaign targeting Black voters during the 2020 election.
The deal announced Tuesday by state Attorney General Letitia James represents the latest punishment the pair will face for orchestrating a broad voter suppression campaign four years ago that used robocalls to spread election-related misinformation to Black voters and others in an effort to discourage voting.
A federal judge found the two men liable last year for targeting Black voters in New York, saying in a lengthy ruling that they “set into motion a full-scale voter suppression operation during the summer of 2020 to discourage eligible voters from voting by targeting mail-in voting in the 2020 Election.”
Read the full article.
If Wohl and Burkman fail to make an initial payment of $105,000 by the end of the year, the fine rises to $1.25 million. Criminal felony charges against both men remain pending in Michigan.
In February 2024, they were hit with a separate $11 million racketeering lawsuit brought by a Maryland man they falsely accused of being a child predator.
In June 2023, the FCC hit Burkman and Wohl with a $5.1 million fine for making more than 1,100 “unlawful robocalls” in August and September 2020.
As many longtime JMG readers will surely recall, during the 2016 campaign Wohl and Burkman hired actors to falsely accuse multiple prominent Democrats and Robert Mueller of various sexual offenses.
Bad news for blundering right-wing operative Jacob Wohl — he now has to pay $1.25 mil for a racist robocall voter suppression scheme, as part of an agreement with NY AG Letitia James. pic.twitter.com/191EeX1aou
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) April 9, 2024