Cass County Telephone Company is paying a $1 million fine and returning $3.6 million in rate credits as a settlement of a complaint filed by the Missouri Public Service Commission. It is "the largest ever imposed by the PSC against a state-regulated utility," says an AP story in the Springfield News-Leader. "The money will go to the state’s public school fund."
Good.
"The PSC began the investigation after CassTel’s former president, Kenneth Matzdorff, pleaded guilty in 2005 to federal charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud," according to the article. "He said he and others used inflated expense figures… to defraud two federal programs of $8.9 million. Prior to that, Matzdorff admitted he helped funnel $750 million to members of the Gambino crime family."
