Two Individuals Plead Guilty to Defrauding FCC Video Relay Service Program

"According to court documents, Thompson was the chief operating officer for Deaf Studio 29, Verson Studio and Deaf News Network, California corporations that contracted with a certified VRS provider company to use the company’s VRS service. Hutchinson was a call center manager for Innovative Communication Services for the Deaf Corporation (ICSD), a company that operated VRS call centers in Florida. Thompson and Hutchinson both conspired with others to generate illegitimate VRS call minutes for reimbursement by the FCC."

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According to the indictment, VRS is an online video translation service that allows people with hearing disabilities to communicate with hearing individuals through the use of interpreters and web cameras. A person with a hearing disability who wants to communicate with a hearing person can do so by contacting a VRS provider through an audio and video Internet connection. The VRS provider, in turn, employs a video interpreter to view and interpret the hearing disabled person’s signed conversation and relay the signed conversation orally to a hearing person. VRS is funded by fees assessed by telecommunications providers from telephone customers, and is provided at no cost to the VRS user.