Kings County District Attorney Charles J. Hynes today announced the arrests of two men for allegedly running a pirate radio station. They surrendered to KCDA detectives on June 27 and were arraigned that day. The defendants are charged with Unauthorized Radio Transmission, a class-A misdemeanor. If convicted, they each face up to a year in jail.
A person is charged with Unauthorized Radio Transmission when he/she knowingly makes a radio transmission on a radio frequency assigned and licensed by the FCC for use by AM and FM radio stations without authorization or having first obtained a license from the FCC. The defendants did not have an FCC (Federal Communications Commission) license for radio transmission, yet they were on radio frequency 104.7 FM.
The Kings County District Attorney’s Office conducted an investigation, with cooperation from the FCC, which revealed that one man was acting as a deejay for 104.7 FM. Detectives bought air time from him on 104.7 FM to run a commercial. On April 18, 2013, an FCC engineer tracked the signal for the radio station to an antenna on the rooftop of 30 Broad Street, a 50-story building in Manhattan. That same evening, detectives from the Kings County District Attorney’s Office executed a search warrant and seized the transmitting equipment for 104.7 FM in a room on top of the roof. While there, another defendant told investigators that he installed the equipment and was aware that the radio station did not have a license. Inside the room, detectives found transmitting equipment for another radio station, 91.7 FM. The transmitting equipment for that station was not on and nothing could be heard on that frequency at the time. The man said 91.7 FM was his station and he claimed he had an FCC license for that frequency.
The individual does not have a license for 91.7 FM. In June of 2013, 91.7 FM was on the air. On June 14, 2013, KCDA detectives, working with an FCC engineer, executed a search warrant and seized the transmitting equipment for 91.7 FM from an elevator room on the top of the roof of an apartment building at 611-615 East 76th Street in Brooklyn.
(YWN Desk – NYC)
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One Response
these guys been operating like this for a while already. rumor has it that the FCC and the DA
are cracking down big time this summer in NYC. I wouldint be surprized if “another station” was next on the list. they have been operating illegally for years now.