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‘Celebrated the Chaos’ 

N.Y. AG to Seek $2.75M for 2020 Robocall Crime to Suppress Black Vote

The plaintiffs who won summary judgment March 8 against defendants Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for their roles in the threatening and intimidating robocall to suppress Black citizens' mail-in votes in the 2020 election (see 2303090003) plan to seek compensatory and punitive damages, statutory penalties, disgorgement of profits, injunctive relief and attorney’s fees and costs, they wrote U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in a letter Tuesday (docket 1:20-cv-08668). Marrero had ordered the plaintiffs to file a joint letter by the Wednesday deadline on the “prospective relief sought.”

The plaintiffs want Marrero to set a briefing schedule on the adjudication of the proposed remedies, their letter said. They seek leave to file their submission on attorney’s fees and costs 30 days after Marrero renders a decision on remedies, it said. The plaintiffs “are willing to waive a jury trial and request a briefing schedule to present evidence and legal argument for the adjudication of remedies,” it said. They propose 90 days for their opening brief on remedies, 45 days for the defendants’ response and 30 days for the plaintiffs’ reply, it said.

Wohl and Burkman hired a Black actress to record the robocall from a script threatening that anyone who used mail-in voting risked having an old arrest warrant tracked down or a credit-card debt collected. The call “markedly lacked any outlandish details or other cues that may indicate to an ordinary listener that it should not be taken seriously,” said Marrero’s order.

The plaintiffs seek damages “in an amount to adequately compensate them for the violation of their rights” by Wohl and Burkman, and for the injuries they incurred, said the letter. Those injuries included “out of pocket loss and other monetary harms,” plus impairment of reputation, personal humiliation, mental anguish and suffering, it said.

Based on Marrero’s finding that Wohl and Burkman violated New York civil rights laws, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) will seek statutory damages of $500 for each of the 5,494 calls -- nearly $2.75 million in total -- made to New York phone numbers, said the letter. James also will seek disgorgement of any profits that Wohl and Burkman obtained “as a result of their unlawful conduct,” it said. The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation brought the original October 2020 complaint, while the unlawful conduct was still taking place. James entered the case as a plaintiff-intervenor in May 2021.

The plaintiffs seek punitive damages “based on the egregious nature” of Wohl’s and Burkman’s conduct, said the letter. The court said their actions “were intentional and that they sought to deprive Black citizens of their right to vote through deception and threats,” it said. The evidence showed they invested “significant time and money into a deliberate plan to target zip codes with large Black populations with a message that, they hoped, would dissuade recipients from voting,” it said.

Wohl and Burkman even “celebrated the chaos they unleashed” after distributing the robocall, said the letter. The plaintiffs plan to present further evidence showing the defendants’ motivations were “malicious,” and they didn’t take seriously “the harmful consequences of their actions,” it said. Wohl and Burkman also showed no remorse, even after Marrero imposed his temporary restraining order, the FCC proposed to fine them and “multiple jurisdictions criminally indicted them,” it said.