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The Avanti Law Group: Under False Claims Act

Under False Claims Act, whistleblowers get their share of billions. Constance Lyttle's job at AT

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The Avanti Law Group: Under False Claims Act

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  1. The Avanti Group Under False Claims Act, whistleblowers get their share of billions By Rich Lord / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  2. Under False Claims Act, whistleblowers get their share of billions Constance Lyttle's job at AT&T slowly shifted from helping deaf people make phone calls, to assisting the efforts of foreign scam artists intent on ripping off Americans. She refused to play along, and was eventually fired by AT&T, which was getting millions of dollars in government funds to run a scam-plagued system for relaying the calls of deaf people. "I didn't have a college degree. There's not a lot of good jobs here" in the Mercer area, Ms. Lyttle, 56, said this month. "I had bills to pay, just like everybody else in America." Constance Lyttle of Mercer successfully sued AT&T for allowing a government-funded system designed for the hearing impaired to become a tool of international scam artists.

  3. 'Ecstatic that they believed me‘ Ms. Lyttle had been employed with AT&T Corp. at a New Castle center since 1997, facilitating calls placed by deaf people. The system, called Telecommunications Relay Service Internet Protocol Relay, allowed the caller to use a web portal to type their side of the conversation. Ms. Lyttle would read it to the intended recipient. Then she would type the response back to the caller, with the Federal Communications Commission footing the bill at anywhere from $1.28 to $1.53 per minute.

  4. More claims, more dollars President Abraham Lincoln signed the False Claims Act in 1863 because defense contractors were gouging the Union and selling faulty armaments. Congress defanged the law in 1943, in the midst of the World War II buildup, and it fell into disuse. News in 1985 that the armed services were paying $435 for hammers and $640 for toilet seats, plus the Department of Defense's announcement that 45 of its largest 100 contractors were under investigation, prompted Congress to revive the act. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., restored mandatory payments to whistleblowers. They also raised the stakes, allowing courts to charge those caught defrauding the government triple the damages they caused, plus penalties. Read full article here: http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/02/23/Under-False-Claims-Act-whistleblowers-get-their-share-of-billions/stories/201402230084

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