Indiana AG announces settlement over robocalls

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced the settlement Monday of lawsuits against two business partners accused of flooding Hoosiers' phones with more than 25 million robocalls.

The attorney general's office first filed a lawsuit in 2020 against Texas-based telemarketers John Caldwell Spiller II and Jakob Mears, who owned several companies including Rising Eagle Capital Group and JSquared Telecom.

The suit alleged their companies perpetrated several scams, including ones involving "extended car warranties and health care services." According to a news release from Rokita's office, Spiller and Mears "spoofed calls to mislead consumers and called people on Do Not Call lists."

In 2021, the Federal Communications Commission, also known as the FCC, fined the defendants a then-agency-record $225 million for transmitting about 1 billion robocalls that the department said "falsely claimed to offer health insurance plans from well-known health insurance companies such as Blue Cross Blue Shield and Cigna."

According to Rokita's release, they made 25 million calls to Hoosiers, including more than 13.5 million calls to people on the national Do Not Call Registry and 5 million on Indiana's Do Not Call List.

Rokita's office worked with attorneys general from seven other states to achieve the settlement, which includes monetary judgments of more than a combined $244 million for the defendants – although the news release noted payments "will be largely suspended" because of Spiller and Mears' inability to pay. They are also permanently banned from "initiating or facilitating" robocalls, working with companies that make such calls or engaging in any telemarketing.