Ten thousand dollars is the potential fine against the owner of a taxi company and auto repair shop not far from New York City. The FCC says he operated an unlicensed transmitter on 90.5 MHz.
The commission issued a notice to Vicot Chery after a listener to noncom WFUV(FM) at Fordham University in the Bronx complained about interference. The FCC traced the signal to an address on Roosevelt Ave. in Spring Valley, a building where P.C. Taxi Services and P.C. Auto Repair are based.
During their visit, the FCC said, Chery showed the agents an operating station in a room, an FM antenna on the roof and a transmitter hidden behind a stack of car tires. He told the agents that he was allowing a friend to use the space to operate the station; and he turned the transmitter off, agreeing to remove the antenna.
The Enforcement Bureau then issued a notice of unlicensed operation. It received a reply from Chery’s lawyer.
“Notwithstanding Chery’s actions during the inspection … Chery’s attorney asserts that Chery ‘had no knowledge of the events which you have charged him with,’ the commission summarized.
“The attorney goes on to state that during the two months prior to the agents’ inspection, Chery had allowed an unspecified person to use the space in his businesses where the radio station was located. To date, Chery has not provided the agents his friend’s name.”
The FCC now has ruled that the station was operating in a building leased by Chery for the operation of his businesses and that he had “demonstrated control over the management of the station as a whole. … The fact that someone else also may have been involved in the station’s operation does not make Chery any less of a participant in the station’s operation.” It issued a notice of apparent liability for $10,000.
