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As violence and crime become major election-year issues, pro-police telemarketing scams are netting millions for a man currently sitting behind bars on fraud allegations — a perfect example of all that’s wrong with our campaign finance laws. Also, Rock the boat.
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Are Pro-Police Scammers Campaigning For Your Cash?
By Jean Yi
 AP Photo/Chris O'Meara/Jeff Chiu [View in browser] The voice on the line is warm and reassuring. He knows your name and gives his name, too. After establishing a rapport, perhaps with a joke, he tugs at your heartstrings — and purse strings — for causes like veterans funds, help for families of slain police officers, and first-responder support associations. Can you donate? Matthew Perri, a 31-year-old server from South Elgin, Ill., gave roughly $500 to Honoring American Law Enforcement after receiving such a call in May. But instead of going to police, most of his money likely ended up in the swelling coffers of a notorious Las Vegas telemarketing king behind bars for fraud. “I had no idea about that, and I’m very upset,” Perri said, only realizing the group was questionable after The Lever contacted him about his donations. “Oh my gosh, I’ve been scammed.” As crime and violence have become major election-year issues — Perri, a registered Republican, called the news of Trump’s attempted assassination “very concerning” — The Lever has found that a shadowy network of potentially counterfeit political action committees with names like Honoring American Law Enforcement, Law Enforcement for a Safer America, and Police Coalition of America has raised more than $14 million from pro-police calls and funneled roughly half of that to vendors connected to Richard Zeitlin, a telemarketer arrested last year on federal charges for wire fraud and obstruction of justice. And while Zeitlin has been behind bars awaiting trial on these charges for nearly a year, those companies and political action committees have continued to bring in money — all while Congress refuses to act. The vendors — Standard Data Services, Wired4data, LAV Services, and Cloud Data Services — have received almost $13 million from all political action committees this election cycle. While the federal indictment against Zeitlin kept his business network anonymous, these four companies were identified through reviews of court documents, state business licenses, past reporting, and Federal Election Commission records.  Zeitlin is currently incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, while the criminal case is ongoing. A federal judge twice denied him bail, deeming him a flight risk because he has partial ownership of a private plane, properties in Mexico, and recently obtained foreign citizenship in Israel. His colleague Robert Piaro, who ran multiple political action committees that gave money to Zeitlin’s companies, was released on bail after his arrest last year in Wisconsin and was last scheduled to appear before a federal court in May. Several of Piaro’s committees remained active as of fall 2023, though none were related to law enforcement. According to Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a professor at Columbia Law School in New York, Zeitlin’s companies remain active because the criminal case is still pending, which is typical for federal wire fraud cases like this. “A conviction would make civil/enforcement action against the companies quick and easy,” said Richman in an email. The Department of Justice requires a conviction for criminal forfeiture. The indictment against Zeitlin alleges that his telemarketing firms operating on the behalf of political action committees misled people to believe their money would be going toward charitable causes, but instead Zeitlin and his associates were pocketing much of the cash. In 2021, calls requesting donations for law enforcement made up the largest share of all scam calls nationwide tracked by Nomorobo, a robocall-blocking service. Since the overwhelming majority of this money went towards overhead costs and hardly any ended up supporting political candidates, experts say these fundraising efforts display all the hallmarks of scam political action committees, which claim to raise money for political causes but pocket nearly all the funds themselves. These scam committees often use networks of the same vendors to help disguise where their money is going. There is no official definition for a scam political action committee, but there are generally two criteria. First, these groups may promise to raise money for a certain candidate or cause but actually spend most of their money on overhead costs like fundraising or administration. Second, they direct money to networks of fraudulent vendors associated with those in charge of the committees. These scam operations are also not endorsed by official candidates, political parties, or reputable nonprofit or corporate organizations. Misrepresenting where political action committee money is going is illegal under existing wire fraud and campaign finance laws. But it’s not illegal for these committee operators to enrich themselves through spending money on salaries or linked vendors instead of campaigns. Zeitlin’s indictment claimed he switched the focus of his telemarketing schemes from charities to political action committees around 2017 to avoid regulations and requirements that do not apply to tax-exempt political organizations. For instance, unlike charities, political action committees do not have to register with states, provide information about their top employees, or detail how their money is spent. Experts warn that record-breaking election spending has led to a proliferation of scam committees. While some lawmakers have introduced legislation and called for increased oversight of scam political action committees since Zeitlin’s activities first came to light, these efforts haven’t produced any new regulatory actions. Moreover, Republicans have moved to install members of the Federal Election Commission who are opposed to enforcement, hamstringing the agency’s ability to investigate campaign finance crimes. Project 2025, the proposed policy platform for a second Trump presidency, calls for a restrained approach to election oversight. The chapter on the Federal Election Commission was written by Hans von Spakovsky, an election security alarmist whom the Senate denied confirming as an election commissioner in the mid-2000s after Justice Department staff accused him of injecting “partisan political factors into decision-making on enforcement matters.” When asked for comment on scam political action committees, the Federal Election Commission referenced its most recent legislative recommendations from December 2023, which asked Congress to crack down on payments to vendors with a financial relationship to political action committee operators among other proposed reforms. The agency declined to comment on specific cases when asked about the allegations against Zeitlin. When asked for comment, the Department of Justice declined to provide information other than what has already been made public about its case against Zeitlin.
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Rise Of A Telemarketing KingRichard Zeitlin’s career in telemarketing began when he founded the Las Vegas, Nevada-based Courtesy Call in 1994. According to the federal indictment, his call centers have since brought in hundreds of millions of dollars. Legal cases against Zeitlin-owned companies and linked pro-police groups stretch back over 15 years. In 2009, the California attorney general sued Courtesy Call, along with its client, the Association for Police and Sheriffs, for allegedly deceiving and misleading donors. Courtesy Call settled the case by paying a $17,000 fine, but did not admit wrongdoing. In 2018, the Federal Trade Commission investigated Courtesy Call and another Zeitlin company, Donor Relations, for alleged “unfair or deceptive acts or practices,” such as calling numbers on the Do Not Call list. According to regulators, Zeitlin refused to cooperate by providing late and inaccurate documents, and the agency ended up dropping its case. Despite multiple government agencies investigating Zeitlin, his companies received between $500,000 to $1.3 million in government loans as part of a 2020 COVID-19 stimulus program. In 2021, Zeitlin faced a class-action lawsuit from several political donors about their donations to three pro-police organizations. That suit was still ongoing when the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Zeitlin at his home in Las Vegas last August. Federal prosecutors charged him with conspiring and committing wire fraud and obstruction of justice. Past reporting from the nonprofit news organization Center for Public Integrity found that Zeitlin’s companies had received $133.1 million from political action committees between 2006 and 2019. Moreover, a Reuters investigation found that four of Zeitlin’s firms made more than $27.6 million from the beginning of 2017 through mid-2019, making him the largest player in the $83.1-million network of questionable fundraising operations that contract with political action committees. Zeitlin’s companies have received less money since his arrest — but the funds are still coming in. Zeitlin’s businesses have so far netted $13 million from all political action committees since January 1, 2023, compared to $20.5 million at this point in the 2022 election cycle. In its indictment, the Justice Department named five pro-police political action committees that contracted with Zeitlin’s businesses from 2017 to 2020. While four of them are now defunct, one is still in operation and another six operations have been doing business with Zeitlin this election cycle, resulting in seven pro-police political action committees funneling money to Zeitlin this election cycle. These political action committees raised $14 million in total, mostly from small donors, between Jan. 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024. While one committee raised just a few hundred dollars, the rest have raised amounts ranging from about $270,000 to $6.7 million. Another committee, Police Action Fund, which raised $220,000, did not have clear ties to Zeitlin but had spending patterns that suggested it was a scam committee. The six Zeitlin-linked pro-police committees that raised substantive amounts of money this campaign cycle spent about 70 to 95 percent of their funds on fundraising alone. In contrast, less than 5 percent of their haul went towards political campaigns or ads for candidates. The two largest of Zeitlin’s companies receiving money from these fundraising committees, Wired4data and Cloud Data Services, were both named in the 2021 lawsuit but have continued operating, collecting $4.6 million from pro-police political action committees this election cycle. Reviews of state business records and Federal Election Commission records revealed two other Zeitlin-linked vendors doing business with these pro-police committees, LAV Services and Standard Data Services, which have together raised $2.3 million. Federal election records list two vendors linked to Zeitlin, Cloud Data Services and LAV Services, at the same address in Henderson, Nev. LAV Services, Standard Data Services, and Wired4data are also all incorporated at the same address in Wilmington, Delaware, which doesn’t require companies to disclose their owners. Many of scam companies that contract with political action committees share the same address because they are run by the same people. The 2021 lawsuit also alleged that several of Zeitlin’s companies, including Cloud Data Services, use mailboxes with mail forwarding services to disguise that they are being run from the same location. Several of the treasurers behind the committees are known Zeitlin associates. For instance, Support America’s Police, which has paid Zeitlin’s companies almost $970,000 this election cycle, is run by Oliver Cappleman, who has known Zeitlin for decades. Cappleman’s political action committees, which also include ones claiming to support veterans, first responders, and children with autism, paid him a total of $187,527 this cycle, according to OpenSecrets. Matt Cobos, who was named in the 2021 class-action lawsuit as the treasurer for the now-defunct Zeitlin-linked political action committee Disabled Veterans Coalition, currently runs two committees, Police and Trooper Support and Patriots for Police, which have together raised almost $1.6 million this election cycle and paid $1.3 million to Zeitlin’s businesses. Many of the people behind these organizations have legitimate connections to politics and police. Mike McCauley, who runs Citizens for Law Enforcement, the committee that did not do business with Zeitlin’s companies but had similar spending patterns as the other political action committees, also served as the treasurer of the Utah Republican Party from 1999 to 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile. “I don’t have any response to that,” McCauley said before hanging up when asked about the political action committee he runs. Bob Stitt, a retired Ohio state trooper, is the treasurer of Honoring American Law Enforcement PAC and a director for the International Union of Police Associations, an alleged scam charity tied to Zeitlin. Honoring American Law Enforcement has directed about $1.2 million towards Zeitlin’s companies this election cycle. The International Union of Police Associations sent $9.2 million to Zeitlin’s four companies in the year ending March 2023. William Pollock, a former Las Vegas police officer, and his wife ran the Police Officers Defense Alliance, a defunct political action committee that did business with Zeitlin from 2018 to 2022, and several other Zeitlin-linked committees. In 2017, Pollock shot and killed a man wielding a butter knife. Lawyers representing Zeitlin and Piaro did not respond to requests for comment. The other operators behind these groups did not respond or were not available to comment.
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A Scam Could Be CallingCalls raising money for scam political action committees represent just a small fraction of the $30- to $40-billion phone-scam industry. Charity scams claim to raise money directly for local law enforcement or other causes. The organizations they raise money for typically have official-sounding names like the American Police and Troopers Coalition and the International Union of Police Associations. The calls asking for donations may come from overseas or anonymous offices in the United States but often spoof local area codes to make it seem like the people asking are based in the community. While Reuters identified a call center in Alabama run by another of Zeitlin’s companies, TPFE, the court opinion denying him bail also claimed that Zeitlin has call centers in Guatemala and Panama. Often, the caller will have a deep, male voice that lends authority. But that call likely comes from a computer, as a pre-recorded voice enables these telemarketers to communicate with multiple people at once. Operators use switchboards to issue different statements depending on the response, hoping to sway recalcitrant donors. The caller may become more and more insistent if the would-be victim remains on the line but does not donate.  Engaging by talking to the callers — or worse, donating — increases the likelihood of receiving future calls. One journalist who donated to the National Police and Troopers Association, a “special project” from the Zeitlin-linked charity International Union of Police Associations, started receiving up to 10 calls a day from various organizations claiming to represent law enforcement, firefighters, and veterans. While telemarketing calls are the most common way these scammers try to get people to donate, several local police departments have also issued warnings about scam solicitations sent by mail. Alleged scam pro-police committees often raise far more money than legitimate law enforcement political action committees, which have netted only about $650,000 this election cycle. In contrast, the groups suspected of telemarketing scams have raised $14.3 million in total — $14 million of which came from political action committees that contracted with Zeitlin. This figure likely doesn’t capture the full scope of pro-law enforcement fundraising scams. OpenSecrets, a government watchdog group that compiles and publishes election spending data, only tracks the 100 largest vendors in a given election cycle and the 10 largest vendors for any given political action committee. Moreover, organizations other than political action committees, like scam charities and political nonprofits that are not regulated by the Federal Election Commission, are also known to raise money by falsely claiming to support police. In fact, one charity, the International Union of Police Associations, sent more in one year to Zeitlin’s companies — almost $9.2 million from March 2022 to March 2023 — than these six political action committees did in the year and a half of this election cycle. A search of 527 Explorer, a tool developed by the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica to track political nonprofits not subject to the Federal Election Commission’s regulations, found five pro-law enforcement organizations active in 2024 that spent most of their money on fundraising and administrative costs. The operations have raised $2.2 million this year, though none of their expenditures went towards companies known to be connected to Zeitlin. Why Congress Won’t ActMisleading calls from telemarketers are illegal under wire fraud laws, which apply to anyone making false claims for profit using electronic communications. Moreover, these callers also often violate Federal Communications Commission guidelines that are designed to prevent telemarketers from calling someone’s cell phone and using pre-recorded messages without prior written consent. But authorities can’t easily stop these illegal scam calls because robocalls are cheap and easy to spoof, and it’s difficult to filter between legitimate and spam robocalls. There’s little the Federal Election Commission can do against the political action committees that contract with telemarketers like Zeitlin without Congress stepping in to tighten campaign-finance regulations. In 2023, Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) introduced a bill to rein in fraudulent political action committee activities: the Stopping Corrupt Actors from Making Political Action Committees (SCAM PAC) Act, which would prevent committees from making disbursements to vendors run by the committees’ operators or their relatives. In a statement to The Lever, Porter said, “I’ve repeatedly pushed Congress to crack down on bad actors and close loopholes that allow scam PACs to exist.” But Porter’s legislation wouldn’t apply to the political action committees that did business with Zeitlin, since the committee operators do not appear to be related to him. For legislation to really address the problem, advocates say it needs to be broad enough to target bad actors, while being specific enough not to infringe upon people’s First Amendment right to express themselves through donations or speech. Amid all this confusion, scam committees have been able to flourish even without clear allies in Congress. There aren’t any obvious lobbyists for scam political action committees or telemarketers in Washington, as the business is a loosely connected network of operators, not an established, defined industry. “This is just an issue that is falling to the back burner when there are so many other really pressing issues in Washington,” said Michael Beckel, research director at Issue One, an advocacy organization seeking to reduce the influence of big money in politics.
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Scam political action committees are more of a problem on the right. Research from Zhao Li, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, found that more than 80 percent of alleged scam political action committees identified from news reports framed themselves as ideologically conservative. One reason for this may be that robocall scams are more likely to go after older Americans, who tend to be more politically conservative and more likely to make political donations than younger Americans. Along with its legislative recommendations, the Federal Election Commission has proposed updating its website to display more information about political action committees and improving outreach to help educate the general public about where their political donations are going. But such efforts aren’t sufficient to address the problem without increasing regulations, Ann Ravel, former chair of the commission, told The Lever. “A lot of those people who are the victims of scams, they’re not going to be looking at the FEC’s regulations,” said Ravel. With regards to telemarketers, the Federal Trade Commission publishes a list of common phone scams, including charity scams. Experts also advise registering for the Do Not Call list and installing a spam robocall-blocking app. Zeitlin, meanwhile, is not the only one allegedly profiting off of this regulatory oversight. With scam political action committees proliferating on both the left and the right, it’s likely that scammers will keep calling. Perri, for one, has started hanging up. While he receives spam calls asking for donations several times a week, he is no longer donating. “I’m definitely not going to support anymore, knowing that it’s a scam,” he said. “I’m just not going to give in this time if they try reaching out again.”
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