The two convicted fraudsters, Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, are promoting a new venture that allegedly helps companies with their lobbying efforts through the use of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
A news report from Politico uncovered the whereabouts and dealings of the two criminals who were convicted of telecommunications fraud back in 2022 for an operation that sought to misinform voters during the 2020 presidential election.
This time, a new company named LobbyMatic has become the vehicle through which they want to sway corporate customers into buying services that no one has confirmed that they can actually provide.
Former Employees Confirm Aliases Used by Wohl and Burkman
The Politico report relied on internal sources who provided vital information about the inner works of LobbyMatic and the efforts made by Wohl and Burkman to conceal their identities.
According to the accounts of one former employee, Wohl uses the name “Jay Klein” to introduce himself to prospective clients and staff while Burkman uses the alias “Bill Sanders” to operate.
The company’s offices are based in McLean, Virginia, while a total of four employees are currently on its payroll, along with various programmers who work for LobbyMatic as independent contractors.
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Information from the LobbyMatic website indicates that the firm helps lobbyists keep track of Congressional hearings and perform queries on all of the materials published by the United States’ top legislative body.
“At LobbyMatic, we harness the power of advanced AI technology within our robust, intuitive training and prompting architecture, ensuring consistent, reliable results every time,” the website reads.
While the company’s official website does not share information about its leadership team, employees who spoke to Politico anonymously confirmed that “Klein and Sanders” are actually Wohl and Burkman. They recognized them from photos online and from the Netflix docuseries “Web of Make Believe,” in which Burkman appears.
These former employees describe Jacob Wohl as somebody who is “out of touch with reality” and sum up their experience with the two convicted fraudsters as working with people who live “in a false reality.”
LobbyMatic Convinces Toyota to Try Out its “Services”
Despite their background, LobbyMatic reportedly managed to secure contracts with at least three companies that agreed to try out its services. One of the most notable names on this list is Toyota.
However, the Japanese automaker confirmed through a spokesperson that they just subscribed to a three-month free trial to test the service and let it expire. Moreover, a representative from Lantheus, a pharmaceutical firm, said something similar.
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The most interesting comment about LobbyMatic’s services came from Jeff Navin, the co-founder of Boundary Stone Partners – another company that tried out its software. He claims that the tool “did not work” and they terminated the contract shortly afterward as a result.
Employees Turned to Google to Find out Who Their Bosses Actually Were
Although the employees who left LobbyMatic and spoke to Politico were initially unaware of Wohl and Burkman’s past, they started to notice oddities in their workplace relationships and interactions.
They recall incidents where Wohl would abstain from providing his ID to security personnel at the entrance of office buildings, the creation of a fake employee profile that was high up in the corporate ladder of LobbyMatic, and reluctance to obtain state-required permits to operate in Virginia.
When they started to doubt who their bosses really were, they snapped a photo of the two without being seen and did some Google searches. At one point, an employee was asked to a house in Arlington, Virginia, which the two scammers had used for press conferences before.
According to The Verge, they received an email from an individual who looks similar to Jacob Wohl who attempted to explain the situation involving LobbyMatic. This person, who only provided a link to an X account called @TheLobbyistGuy claimed that he was involved in “partisan politics” in the past but that is now pivoting his life “in a new direction.”
LobbyMatic was registered in Delaware last year and does not have a license to provide services in the state of Virginia, as required.
“It [LobbyMatic] just feels really dirty and I’m also happy to be away from it. I’m done, I’m gone,” one employee stressed.
Wohl and Burkman Were Convicted of Fraud and Forced to Pay Large Fines
Two years ago, these two criminals were forced to pay a large fine of $1.25 million and were slammed with a two-year probation sentence as they attempted to force Black voters to either abstain from casting their ballots or favor a specific candidate.
To accomplish this, Burman and Wohl created a system that made automated calls – also known as robocalls – and made over 5,000 connections with prospective voters.
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“Hi, this is Tamika Taylor from Project 1599, the civil rights organization founded by Jack Burman and Jacob Wohl. Mail-in voting sounds great, but did you know that if you vote by mail, your personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts?” one of the transcripts of the robocalls made by Burkman and Wohl’s software reads.
“undisputed evidence in this case establishes that Defendants’ conduct in designing and executing the Robocall was racially motivated; the Robocall sought to deter eligible Black voters from exercising their right to vote, subjecting them to discrimination in their civil rights,” the federal judge appointed to the case wrote back then.
Apart from this, they engaged in schemes that sought to spread fake news about top government officials including Dr. Anthony Faucci, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Vice President Kamala Harris.
The two became known as far-right conspiracy theorists who used ill-conceived tactics to smear high-profile Democratic politicians. YouTube documentarian Oki created an extensive breakdown of Wohl and Burkman’s various antics over the years if you’re interested in learning more.
This new AI endeavor promoted by Wohl and Burkman appears to have no legs and could be another attempt to defraud unwary organizations and lobbyists by disguising their true identities while taking advantage of the hype surrounding this nascent technology.
The accounts of former employees and their efforts to unmask them reveal the power of the internet to help dismantle ‘webs of lies’ that fraudsters like these two repeatedly try to construct.
The internet has a great memory and Wohl and Burkman may be about to find out that fraud does not necessarily go unnoticed by those who know where to look for it.