Todd Lesser
Contents
Background
The majority of recent AllStarLink issues can be tracked back to a time when Todd Lessor joined the board, right after Tim Sawyer left, and Bryan Fields (I) wanted to leave. As I couldn't resign, as that would have left 2 directors (not legal under FS617), Todd Lessor joined and I left. I was surprised at his lack of candor after he assumed the board position as he immediately began to hold information secret. Shockingly, Tim was now back on the board, after he resigned and nothing could be done to convince him to stay.
My view of this as it was orchestrated to get me off the board and give Todd a means to exploit ASL. Keep in mind we (ASL) hadn't really know Todd prior to much of this. I was impressed he finally went out and got his tech license after Jim passed, but other than him owning a CLEC (North County Communication) no one really knew much about him. As a CLEC owner I thought he'd have a working knowledge of asterisk and general telecom, but I had to show him how to SSH and configure the WB6NIL repeater (Node 2024) at his office to change it to his callsign.
After he got on the board, they became very inward facing and refused to communicate with the admin team. This impacted operations and general development morale. They added Pete Elke to the board soon after and had David Shaw join as well. This group turned even more inward and I believe this was due, in no small part, to Todd's leadership.
When we negotiated to get assignment of the assets from Jim's estate, Todd had a serious concern of the other non-app_rpt/asterisk assets, MIPL software, and it's associated marks. Under ASL as it existed at this time, any of these could be sold off and monetized. There was no protections against it, and it was not held in trust or protected from normal sale. As an example any assets or intellectual property ("IP") transferred to ASL could be disposed in any means by a simple majority vote of the board.
As an example the board could easily sell the property off to a third party for below market value, and this third party could be owned by a board member who then resigns. The third party would now own the IP and be able to sell it or monetize it for it's real value. This is basically what happened with the Public Internet Registry ("PIR") which was owned by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Society#Sale_of_the_Public_Interest_Registry. This would be in conflict of the major reason ASL was incorporated in the first place.
Todd Lessor was always chomping at the bit about ASL "assets" such as this, which seemed to be intriguing to me.
The picture came together in 2020, as it was at that time research showed that Mr. Lessor had several pending lawsuits against him. In late 2020, he was found to have in excess of 2.5 Million in judgements against himself and had property seized in San Diego for conspiring to distribute narcotics. Most of this was hampered by the poor access to public records in California vs. what Florida has under the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_information_legislation_(Florida). There was some limited information in the Federal Courts under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACER_(law), but it was clear he had filed bankruptcy at least twice in the last 5 years, and been involved in litigation against two major telecom carriers in the federal courts.
Case Summary
It's clear in these cases that North County Communications ("NCC") engaged in a practice know as "https://www.fcc.gov/general/traffic-pumping". In short NCC was a phone company and as a phone company is permitted to bill other phone companies for calls to the CLEC's customers. Typically these rates are in the .1 or .2 cents per minute and this is the same for all carriers, known as a tariff. This tariff can be much higher in certain areas of the US typically were phone service is provided by non-RBOC ILEC phone companies, and can be 2-4 cents per minute. If a CLEC should operate in these areas, servicing customers in these areas, they can make more money. These areas tend to be rural and not populated, thus being more expensive for the CLEC to provide services in.
At a million minutes per month at this can add up to significant fees paid to the CLEC.
Now typically these are only permitted to be charged for customer to customer calls. Automated calling or chat lines are not subject to collect these fees and typically are a small if any part of inbound calls as most legitimate chat lines use an 900 number or 800 number and require the user to pay via a credit card. They are also separate business from the CLEC.
If the sex chat operator is can find a less than honorable CLEC, they can enter into an arrangement where it's free to call the sex chat via a local number in one of these expensive areas. This allows the CLEC to collect several million or more minutes of use per month as it's free for most people to call any other number. Thse sex chat lines stimulate access calls and the CLEC is able to bill the large telcos for their customers calling the sex chat at the tariffed rate. This can add up to several million dollars of "profit" per month.
In all cases below Todd Lesser was an owner of NCC and the sex chat operator, HFT, Inc. In the filings we can find, HFT, Inc. never paid NCC for access as a typical customer of a CLEC would. HTF, Inc existed only to simulate calls via NCC. This is an arrangement which viewed though the best of intentions would be considered fraudulent.
In the Mid 2000's most carriers began auditing to find this sort of operation via call detail records ("CDR") auditing. The SS7 interconnect protocol helped in this along with modern auditing software sold by the major telecom vendors. This even became a FCC rule in 2011 [[1]].
Under the laws in the mid 2000's most carriers had to sue or petition the FCC for redress. In some cases they refused to pay the fraudulent bills by the CLEC's and the CLEC would sue the big carrier. This is indeed what NCC did, suing Verizon, MetroPCS, TMO and Vaya Telecom for failure to pay their interconnection charges. In all cases these ended up with judgements against NCC and Todd Lesser personally.
Federal Records
In PACER We found Todd/NCC sued or counter-sued by Verizon, Sprint, TMO and other carriers for billing irregularities related to access stimulation.
FCC
Before the FCC Sprint and T-Mobile 2015-01-23 Joint Statement to FCC regarding discovery Sprint v NCC fcc-60001016009
STATEMENT OF UNDISPUTED FACTS:
13: All revenues of NCC and HFT are for the benefit of Mr. Lesser. 17: NCC’s traffic from Sprint is “100 percent chat line traffic.”15 25: In a lawsuit against Vaya Telecom pending in state court in California, NCC was
sanctioned $92,966.45 for discovery violations, including violations of court orders to produce financial records involving transactions between NCC and HFT 61. Mr. Lesser testified in the Sprint matter that he created the invoices on a monthly basis in custom software that he wrote himself
66: After NCC produced the invoices, Verizon obtained an order directing NCC to produce all computer drives it used to create, modify, or manipulate those invoices so that a court-appointed expert could test whether the HFT invoices were, as in Farmers II, backdated.63 The neutral forensic expert appointed by the District Court examined the two drives Mr. Lesser produced – an Apple iBook G-4 laptop hard drive (“Mac Computer”) and a removable USB flash drive (“Thumb Drive”).64 (Compl. ¶ 102; but see Answer ¶ 115)
70Todd Admits to deleting the bash history and log of commands during discovery. 71: The District Court sanctioned NCC for evidence destruction
Bankruptcy Court
Todd Lesser has filed bankruptcy a couple times that can be found in PACER. What is interesting is these were filed pro-se, or without an attorney. In both cases the case was dismissed for failure to prosecute by Mr. Lesser.
Upon review of the records from San Diego County, it was found both these filings aligned with foreclosure proceedings on his residence or business. This is a well known tactic, as a bankruptcy filing will pause all foreclosure actions giving time to the debtor, and encouraging the holder of the loan to settle. In both cases Mr. Lesser was able to re-mortgage or finance his residence, and then have the court dismiss the case. In the second time in 2019 he entered into a trust agreement with his father loaning him over 1,000,000 dollars.
San Diego County
Our search in San Diego produced the following.
Of the most interesting was his judgements from NCC vs. Vaya Telecom. This case was essentially the same as the federal actions on access stimulation and took years to bring to trial/appeal/final judgement. Now the final judgments are done and the court has held NCC, HFT, Inc. and Todd Lessor personally and jointly liable
- 2019-03-22 - 92,966.45 sanction on Todd Lessor personally for schenagians during discovery.
- 2020-06-06 - 597,474.38 judgment against Todd Lessor and his companies.
- 2020-12-02 - 1,357,154.27 judgment against Todd Lessor and his companies.
2017-0444025 136,727.96 - Bank of America judgement 2017-0441050 6088.86 - Discover Card Bank
Narcotics Forfeiture
Todd Lesser has been sanctioned twice by the City of San Diego for operating an unlicensed narcotics distribution site on his property. This is the same property address he has listed on his FCC Amateur Radio License https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/license.jsp?licKey=4013923
https://casetext.com/case/city-of-san-diego-v-4008-taylor-st-llc
https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/nr171101a1.pdf
https://www.sandiegometro.com/2017/11/daily-business-report-nov-2-2017/
2018-0126301.pdf - this is the second time around
2017-0214411.pdf - Forfeiture action against Todd Lesser by city of San Diego
In this case, Todd Lesser was held personally responsible for 200,000.00 dollars for willfully defying a temporary injunction by the court. This was the second such business he allowed to operate at this location involved in narcotics distribution.
Property Foreclosures
Mutiple times in the past 5 years Todd Lesser residence at 2717 Hidden Valley Rd. La Jolla CA 92037 has gone into for failure to pay the mortgage as agreeded.
Todd has previously used his residence in such a fashion with a private note from a Yvonne Smith in april 2018 of 400,000.00 Dollars. 2018-0160972.pdf
In december 2019 Todd Lesser has borrowed 1,043,440.00 on this propert from his father Dr. Donald Yost Lesser on this property. This coincided with Todd Lesser's bankruptcy and Lis Pendens from his mortgage holder. It remains to be seen if Donald Lesser is being paid as agreed under this trust 2019-0585335.pdf
Filing False Lis Pendens
In 2006 Todd Lesser made an offer to purchase a property from John Raymond managing member of Surfstone LLC. This offer expired and Todd Lesser preceded as if it was signed and agreed too. Todd Lesser then filed a Lis Pendens on the property and the property owner sued to have it revoked by the court.
In 20006-0378821.pdf the court held this was not a proper lis pendens and sanctioned Todd Lesser and dismissed the action by him.
Local Politics
Todd Lesser seems to desire involvement in the politics of his city in any form. He's served and resigned from a couple minor city boards with limited powers. In several cases he's protested the election or findings of the board when such actions have gone against his postions or interests.
La Jolla Shores Association
http://www.sdnews.com/view/full_story/22368481/article-Tempers-flare-over-officer-election-at-LJSA
Todd argues over flipping a coin. His attorney makes a case that a strict following of Robers Rules of Order is Required.
La Jolla Traffic and Transportation Board
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnmO2oYJYaM
La Jolla
Final Thoughts
Our research only covered one county in California. It's not unreasonable to assume other counties may have other such actions in their court systems, especially in places Todd Lesser has conducted his businesses.
From the above it would appear Todd Lesser's choice of professions have been based mostly on less than ethical choices and that has been catching up with him. Having worked with him in the past I know he loves to talk until he is able to get his way. It takes a strong person to stand up and say "No" to him.
As we have added up over $2,500,000 (2.5 million) dollars in debts he is personally liable for, and his pattern of being less than truthful under oath one must question what was wrong with the prior AllStarLink Board of Directors in letting him direct most of the corporation. AllStarLink now is in a position of operating in debt and one can envision Todd Lesser wanting to sell off assets to fund it while also benefiting himself.
