CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Two right-wing conspiracy theorists who placed thousands of robocalls with false information to largely minority and Democratic voters in Cleveland in the months before the November 2020 election pleaded guilty on Monday to a felony charge.
Jacob Wohl, 24, of Irvine, California, and Jack Burkman, 56, of Arlington, Virginia, face a maximum of a year in prison after they pleaded guilty to a fifth-degree felony charge of telecommunications fraud.
Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor James Gutierrez said the men also agreed to pay the maximum fine of $2,500 as part of the plea deal. Prosecutors dismissed 14 counts of telecommunications and bribery as part of the deal.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge John Sutula set sentencing for Nov. 29. He allowed Wohl and Burkman to attend the hearing via Zoom.
Wohl, Burkman and their attorneys declined to answer questions from reporters after the hearing.
Wohl and Burkman gained national profiles after holding several press conferences to levy false accusations against prominent Democrats and Republicans critical of former President Donald Trump.
Their schemes included accusing former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and Robert Mueller, the former FBI Director and Special Counsel in the investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, of sexual assault and harassment charges that were quickly debunked.
The two were charged in October 2020 after prosecutors said their group, Project 1599, placed more than 3,500 robocalls that spread misinformation to targeted voters on Cleveland’s East Side and in East Cleveland.
The calls featured a woman warning voters against being “finessed into giving your private information to the man” and that if they voted by mail, police and debt-collection agencies would use their personal information to arrest them for outstanding warrants or collect outstanding debts, according to court filings. The call also claimed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control could use their information to institute a mandatory vaccination program.
Both claims are false.
The calls were among more than 85,000 total that prosecutors said specifically targeted minority voters in heavily democratic areas in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York City and Cleveland.
Several states expanded the use of absentee voting to accommodate voters weary of casting their ballots in person at crowded precincts during the coronavirus pandemic.
Sutula last month denied a motion filed by the men’s attorneys asking Sutula to find the robocalls were protected by the First Amendment and to throw out the charges.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel also charged Wohl and Burkman with multiple felonies tied to the same conduct. The pair has appealed that case to the Michigan Supreme Court.
The Federal Communications Commission last year recommended that the pair pay a $5.1 million fine for the robocalls, which at the time was the largest forfeiture that the commission had sought in a robocall case, according to a news release.