IDT CEO Jim Courter Forced to Step Down As John McCain Fundraiser

Jim Courter the CEO of IDT Corporation was forced to step down this week as one of 21 campaign fundraisers due to the FCCs finding this past week that his company was guilty in violating communications guidelines for improper payments to foreign officials in return for preferential rates.

The violation in question dates back a couple of years and stems from an alleged preferential rate that IDT procured from Telco Haiti in which IDT got a preferred termination rate of $0.0875 into Haiti when the government of Haiti's mandated inbound rate was no less than $0.23 per minute. In exchange for the lower rate IDT paid into an offshore bank account that allegedly belonged to former corrupt president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Apparently $0.03 per minute of the $0.0875 went to Aristide and the rest to Telco Haiti (numbers form Portfolio.com).

The issue was outed in 2003 when former employee Michael Jewett, The Caribbean Sales Manager, brought suit against IDT for wrongful termination when he was fired for not wanting to go along with the deal.

The FCC finally acted last week after investigating the issue and fined IDT 1.3 million dollars for this violation. As a result of the news, McCain's camp quickly went into damage control mode and I imagine got Courter to step down. However, not before the press began having a field day with the issue! The issue got so much attention that it even made in into Comedy Central's Indecision 2008 web site. As the days go on more and more major press outlets like the NJ Star Ledger, Washington Post, and many more. A black eye for both McCain and for IDT!