Ex-CEO/BDAC Chair Pierce Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud and Identity Theft
Ex-Quintillion CEO Elizabeth Pierce pled guilty to wire fraud and identify theft in a scheme to induce investors to sink more than $250 million into her Alaska-based company's fiber network, said the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
New York Monday. Pierce, also FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee ex-chair, admitted to engaging "in a brazen, multi-year scheme to obtain over $250 million from investors by misrepresenting that she had guaranteed revenue contracts with multiple telecommunications services companies," said U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. Pierce, now of Austin, is to be sentenced May 16, said the office. She pleaded guilty to one wire fraud count, carrying a 20-year maximum sentence, and eight counts of aggravated identity theft, each having a mandatory two years' imprisonment, with at least two of those years to be consecutive to any wire fraud term. Pierce's arrest in April (see 1804130055) led the Project on Government Oversight to seek an FCC investigation into her BDAC work (see 1804180038). The agency last year played down her role, and Chairman Ajit Pai told a lawmaker in the fall he and staff weren't aware of the DOJ probe before Pierce resigned as BDAC chair in September 2017 (see 1810040051). The commission declined comment Tuesday.