October 16, 2003 | Read Time: 1 minute
In what New York officials call an unprecedented effort to crack down on fund-raising abuses, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has filed criminal charges against a telemarketing company and its owner for allegedly failing to register with state authorities as required by New York charities law.
Accused are Upstate Telemarketing Inc., of Liverpool, N.Y., and its owner, Dominic J. D’Alfonso, of North Syracuse. Mr. D’Alfonso pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge.
Officials in the attorney general’s office said they believed the suit was the first brought in New York in which a fund raiser was criminally charged for failure to register with the state.
Repeated Notices
The lawsuit said that Mr. D’Alfonso disregarded the requirement that his company register as a professional fund raiser despite repeated notices from the attorney general’s office and his independent knowledge of the law. Mr. Spitzer’s office said that Mr. D’Alfonso had served as president of four registered professional fund-raising companies over the past 15 years.
The lawsuit also said that Mr. D’Alfonso was aware of the registration requirement because of a civil lawsuit filed by the attorney general’s office in 1997 against one of the fund-raising companies of which Mr. D’Alfonso served as president.
The 1997 suit was settled when Mr. D’Alfonso agreed to a court order that prohibited any corporation that he would ever own or operate from soliciting funds without being registered as a professional fund raiser, according to Mr. Spitzer’s office.
The charges against Mr. D’Alfonso carry penalties of imprisonment of up to one year, a $1,000 fine, and restitution of fund-raising fees. The charges against Upstate Telemarketing have fines of up to $5,000 and similar restitution.
