Rightwing election robocall fraudsters must spend 500 hours registering voters

Two men convicted of fraud for targeting Black voters with phony robocalls before the 2020 election must spend 500 hours registering voters in low-income neighborhoods of Washington DC, an Ohio judge ruled.

The calls told people they could be arrested or forced to receive vaccinations based on information they submitted in votes by mail.

Wohl and Burkman were indicted in October 2020, accused of arranging for a voice broadcast service to make about 85,000 robocalls to predominantly Black neighborhoods in Ohio, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois in the run-up to the 2020 general election.

Prosecutors said the pair were responsible for 3,500 calls to residents of Cleveland and East Cleveland.

According to James Gutierrez, an assistant Cuyahoga county prosecutor, the robocalls warned voters that police, credit card companies and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would use personal information obtained from mail-in ballots to find individuals with arrest warrants and credit card debt, Cleveland.com reported.

Some calls told voters personal information would be used to carry out forced vaccinations.

Wohl and Burkman have also been sued in federal court in New York and face a $5.1m fine from the Federal Communications Commission. They are appealing criminal charges in Detroit, stemming from a similar bogus robocall scheme targeting Black voters.