Rhodes facing $13M FCC fine

SANDPOINT — A former Sandpoint resident is facing an almost $13 million fine proposed by the Federal Communications Commission for alleged caller ID spoofing linked to thousands of illegal robocalls.

The proposed $12,910,000 fine against Scott D. Rhodes, a former Sandpoint resident linked to racist CDs left on the cars of Sandpoint High School students and attacks on local media, was announced Thursday by the FCC.

In a proposed action, formally called a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture, FCC officials say they identified “a widespread campaign” with six identified campaigns that they said violate the Truth in Caller ID Act, linked to Rhodes.

In addition to the Idaho calls, the FCC identified five other spoofing campaigns — California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa and Virginia — that contained racist, anti-Semetic, homophobic and anti-immigrant messages.

In addition to the CDs left at SHS, Rhodes was implicated in the distribution of flyers, emails, and robocalls targeting Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad, local media, and other community members. Many of the flyers and robocalls featured an anti-immigrant, racist message and sought to promote the area as a supposed haven for white supremacy.

In Thursday’s complaint, FCC officials said Rhodes made an estimated 750 robocalls in September 2018 in Sandpoint in which Rhodes attacked weekly newspaper The Sandpoint Reader and its publisher Ben Olson, and threateningly called on residents to “burn out the cancer.”

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said each of the six campaign bear the same signature: apparent use of a spoofed caller ID unconnected to Rhodes, caller IDs that matched the area codes of targeted communities, and falsified caller IDs with the intent to cause harm and to shield Rhodes from liability while earning publicity for his personal brand and his website “The Road to Power.”

“Today, we begin to hold Rhodes accountable for his apparent violations of the law,” he said in a statement. “Our Notice of Apparent Liability will not undo the harm caused by these spoofed robocalls, particularly to the grieving family of Mollie Tibbetts and the community of Brooklyn. But it once again makes clear this commission’s determination to go after those who are unlawfully bombarding the American people with spoofed robocalls.”

Mollie Tibbetts was a sophomore at the University of Iowa who was murdered in mid-July 2018. An undocumented immigrant from Mexico, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, now 25, is undergoing trial for first-degree murder in the case. Following her death and Rivera’s arrest, residents in her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa, including her family, received phone calls talking about a “brown horde” or “savages” and said the murder victim would have said to “Kill them all.”

FCC officials said Rhodes was apparently motivated by a belief that the robocalls would result in media notoriety and boost publicity for his website and himself. The FCC, Federal Trade Commission, and local law enforcement all received numerous complaints from consumers about the calls.

Rhodes will be given a chance to respond to the NAL and the commission will consider any evidence and legal claims he makes before a formal decision is made. The matter would then be turned over to the Department of Justice for the thousands of robocalls targeted specific communities with the intent to cause harm, FCC officials said in the press release. Among them, calls targeted a community grappling with the recent murder of a local woman, attempted to influence a jury, and several calls related to political campaigns in California, Florida, and Georgia.

The Truth in Caller ID Act prohibits manipulating caller ID information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value. An investigation by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau found six apparent campaigns by Rhodes, who the agency said appears to have used an online calling platform to intentionally manipulate caller ID information to make it appear his calls were coming from local numbers — a technique called “neighbor spoofing.”

Other campaigns identified by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau are:

- California — FCC officials accuse Rhodes of making 1,496 spoofed robocalls in May 2018 about the state’s U.S. Senate primary, attacking the incumbent U.S. senator’s Jewish heritage and accusing her of dual loyalties.

- Florida — FCC officials accuse Rhodes of making 766 spoofed robocalls in October 2018 that included racist attacks about a Florida gubernatorial candidate. The robocalls falsely claimed to be from the candidate and used “a caricature of a black dialect” with jungle background noises.

- Georgia ­— FCC officials accuse Rhodes of making 583 spoofed robocalls in November 2018 to make racist calls attacking a Georgia gubernatorial candidate. The calls pretended to be from Oprah Winfrey and concerned a racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

- Virginia — FCC officials accuse Rhodes of making 2,023 spoofed robocalls in November and December 2018 to residents of Charlottesville, Virginia, during the trial of James Fields, who was charged with murdering Heather Heyer by driving an automobile into a crowd of protesters. The calls articulated a racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, which blamed local officials for the crime. The timing of the calls suggests an attempt by the caller to influence the jury, FCC officials said.

Caroline Lobsinger can be reached by email at clobsinger@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @CarolDailyBee.