Subject: [NEXTEL-1] "Da-Hammer"- Jail Term Enforces Temporary Radio Silence on Former Amateur

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 18:01:19 -0500

Jail Term Enforces Temporary Radio Silence on Former Amateur

NEWINGTON, CT, Feb 27, 2004--All's quiet on the Western Front--at least
for the time being. Now that former amateur licensee Jack Gerritsen,
ex-KG6IRO, of Bell, California, is back behind bars until March 24, Los
Angeles-area Amateur Radio repeater owners and law enforcement agencies
are breathing a short sigh of relief. Hams and police have long
complained to the FCC that Gerritsen has been illegally transmitting on
repeaters using the ham radio call sign he'd held for about a week in
2001 and has been jamming public safety transmissions.

Some two dozen amateurs and a handful of law officers were on hand to
see Gerritsen get his day in federal court February 23 on a relatively
minor charge that he ignored a posted entryway to the courthouse
roof--reportedly with a portable transceiver and extra batteries in
hand. Federal Judge Carolyn Turchin said the battery pack, wrapped in
black electrical tape, looked like a possible bomb to the officers who
arrested him.

Gerritsen received the maximum penalty on the trespassing charge--30
days in jail and a $2500 fine plus court costs. If he doesn't pay up by
May 15, the government will impose a real estate lien against
Gerritsen's house. Many members of the amateur community had written
Turchin regarding Gerritsen's alleged on-the-air behavior. Turchin
apologized to the amateurs because she could not take their unsolicited
letters into consideration for the trespassing case. She did forward
them to federal probation officials handling Gerritsen's case, however.

Amateurs and law officers--some of them also amateur licensees--remain
unhappy at the slow pace of progress in prosecuting Gerritsen on the
radio interference-related allegations, however. Some sheriff's deputies
claimed this week that Gerritsen only recently had transmitted on public
safety frequencies. Amateur repeater owners already are in the habit of
shutting down their machines altogether when transmissions they
attribute to Gerritsen start up.

The FCC pulled Gerritsen's Technician ticket only a few days after
granting it in 2001 after learning that he'd been convicted the previous
year in state court of interfering with Los Angeles Police Department
radio transmissions. The FCC also had heard complaints from amateurs
that Gerritsen was operating without a license and causing malicious
interference on numerous repeaters. Gerritsen has told ARRL that the FCC
had no right to take away his ham radio license without affording him a
hearing, and he considers himself to still be a licensee. FCC
administrative procedures permit the Commission to rescind a license
grant within 30 days without a hearing, however.

Last fall, the FCC also set aside Gerritsen's General Mobile Radio
Service (GMRS) license, basing the action on what it described as
"continuing unlicensed operation and complaints of deliberate
interference from transmitters you operate."
The next steps for the FCC are a forfeiture proceeding and criminal
prosecution, although it can take months--even years--before such cases
ever go to court. A Hearing Designation Order for Gerritsen already is
slowly working its way through the FCC bureaucracy. Gerritsen's Amateur
Radio and GMRS applications have reverted to pending status. FCC Special
Counsel for Enforcement Riley Hollingsworth has told Gerritsen that the
FCC will make the GMRS application part of the record when it holds a
hearing on his amateur application to determine if Gerritsen is
qualified to be a Commission licensee.  In such a hearing, the burden of
proof is on Gerritsen.

The FCC alleges that when Gerritsen was paroled after serving one year
of a five-year sentence for earlier radio-related
violations, he resumed operating and caused deliberate interference to
numerous amateur repeaters as well as to public safety
radio systems. In May 2002, Gerritsen was sentenced to three years in
prison--with credit for good behavior, work time and
time already served--but he was released early due to jail overcrowding,
Hollingsworth said.

Hollingsworth says the FCC investigation into Gerritsen continues, but
patience on the part of the amateur repeater owners and
law enforcement agencies is starting to wear very thin. Hollingsworth
has expressed his own frustration that Gerritsen was
released from prison with no conditions or restrictions on possession or
use of radio equipment, "which is what he was in there
for in the first place."

"We are doing what we can, commensurate with the responsibilities of a
very small FCC office having to cover a lot of real
estate," Hollingsworth told one frustrated member of the law enforcement
community who expressed disappointment in the
FCC's lack of action. "We'll all be glad when this is taken care of."

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/02/27/101/?nc=1

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