Man Charged With Running Creole Pirate Radio Station
Posted on: Thursday, 8 June 2006, 06:00 CDT
By Evan S. Benn, The Miami Herald
Jun. 8--State agents arrested a North Miami-Dade man Wednesday and charged him with operating an unlicensed radio station out of a room he rented from a corrections officer.
Bertral Pierre, 35, had been broadcasting a pirate station called Radio Energy for the past several months, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Paige Patterson-Hughes. Pierre transmitted Creole-language music on 90.7 FM, she said.
The corrections officer was not involved in the radio station activity and has been cooperating with the investigation, Patterson-Hughes said. The officer rented Pierre a room at a home in the 15200 block of Northeast Eighth Avenue.
The FDLE began investigating in April after receiving a complaint from the FCC. The regulatory agency is able to identify and locate unlicensed transmissions.
It's the ninth pirate-radio bust in South Florida in the past year.
Such stations are considered problematic because they can interfere with public-safety alerts, weather bulletins and air-traffic signals being broadcast on licensed frequencies.
"The reason it's an issue is these unlicensed stations can block out Amber Alerts and other important transmissions," Patterson-Hughes said.
In two recent South Florida cases, authorities determined the stations were disrupting air-traffic communication. Investigators do not believe Pierre's broadcast affected any air-traffic signals.
Pierre was booked at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami-Dade. He is charged with a third-degree felony and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Miami Herald
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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Source: The Miami Herald
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