Spectrum buccaneer Roubens Maignan plied the airwaves of Port St. Lucie FL, in the Fort Pierce-Stuart-Vero Beach Arbitron market, using 106.1 MHz for his unlicensed forays into the electronic media space. He was busted on 1/24/07. In his defense, he claimed to be unaware that a license was required to run an FM radio station, a defense that the vast body of FCC precedent easily renders useless. With ignorance no excuse, he was hit with the standard 10K fine. Additional documentation provided by Maignan failed to establish his innocence, but it did successfully establish his relative poverty. The FCC determined that the 10K fine would be an undue hardship on Maignan’s family, and cut him some slack, 8.5K worth to be exact. The bottom line on the new bill detailing Maignan’s debt to society reads 1.5K.
