Alleged Mattapan radio pirate faces $600k fine for staying on the air even after earlier warnings and fines
The FCC says it's grown tired of a man it says has been running an illegal radio station via transmitters in Mattapan, Randolph and Brockton for nearly two decades, so it's now proposing to fine him $597,775 in an attempt to get him to stay off the air.
In a notice of apparent liability for forfeiture, first reported by Inside Radio, the commission reports that its Boston office tracked programming from Jean Harold Marius's Radio Tele Planet Compas at 89.3 MHz to an address on Walk Hill Street in Mattapan in both June and July of last year - and also followed the same programming to addresses in Randolph and Brockton.
It's the latest periodic attempt by the FCC to shutter low-wattage stations, generally aimed at Boston-area Haitian and African-American communities, that go online without an FCC license.
In December, Marius, who focuses on religious programming for the local Haitian community, wrote the FCC to say he had stopped transmitting on the air. This afternoon, a car radio in Roslindale tuned to 89.3 only picked up a Rhode Island NPR station.
