Freshman Rep. Brian Mast is linked to a Florida marketing company under investigation by federal regulators for allegedly pocketing millions of dollars in a patent scam.
World Patent Marketing and its owner, Scott J. Cooper, are accused by the Federal Trade Commission of defrauding thousands of clients in the last few years to the tune of millions of dollars, and then harassing customers who threatened to report the scam.
Mast, a Republican and military veteran who represents part of Palm Beach County, was named a member of the company’s advisory board in February 2016, shortly before Cooper donated more than $5,000 to Mast’s election campaign.
In an interview, Mast insisted he had only met Cooper face-to-face on two occasions — including a party last month celebrating the freshman lawmaker’s victory — and did not know where Cooper obtained footage of him used in a promotional video for the firm. Mast also said Cooper did not have his permission to use his image.
Mast said he never received compensation from the company and did not know about the press release announcing his appointment to the advisory board before it was published.
“[Cooper] was somebody who was introduced to me,” Mast said. “I was aware that I became a member of a board through a press release someone else sent to me. I didn’t even know.”
However, a Feb. 29, 2016 announcement still on the company’s website details Mast’s board membership and includes a quote attributed to the Florida Republican.
“For me, showing support for what I believe in is not writing a post on Facebook. …It is giving of my own sweat, my own blood, and my own tears in the most right and worthy causes I can find,” Mast is quoted as saying in the press release.
“I believe that serving on the World Patent Marketing Advisory Board is one way that I can accomplish those goals. It is an honor to be a part of an organization that is so dynamic and forward looking,” Mast adds, according to the release.
On March 8, 2016, one week after the announcement, Cooper donated $5,400 to a joint fundraising committee for Mast, according to FEC records. The donation was then divided and equally distributed to Mast’s campaign account and his leadership PAC.
Mast does not list any compensation or positions with the company on his financial disclosure forms. Yet it’s clear that Mast and Cooper are friendly with each other on some level.
The release announcing Mast’s appointment to the company’s board includes a photo of the then-candidate and Cooper next to a “World Patent Marketing” sign. Mast is also mentioned in several now-deleted blog posts on the company page and is the focus of a video uploaded by the company in September 2016.
Cooper tweeted a photo on Feb. 22, 2017 of Mast and him together at a bar. The two men are smiling with drinks in their hands and Cooper has his arm around the Florida lawmaker.
“Florida Congressman Brian Mast and World Patent Marketing CEO Scott Cooper finally relax after the swearing in…,” Cooper captioned the tweet.
Cooper has also described Mast as a “former WPM board member” in multiple social media posts recently. At one point, the cover photo for World Patent Marketing’s Facebook page was a picture of Mast, a double amputee, walking down the Capitol steps.
“Keep up the amazing work Congressman Mast – World Patent Marketing stands behind you!!!” the group wrote in a post on its Facebook page accompanied by a video of Mast speaking on the House floor Jan. 6, 2017.
“Congratulations to Brian Mast, WPM Board Member on becoming a member of the US Congress,” read another Facebook post dated Nov. 16 with the same picture of Mast and Cooper that was used in the press release announcing his board membership.
Asked about the relationship between Cooper and Mast, the lawmaker’s spokesman said the two men were “acquaintances.”
“He does know me, just like thousands of other people who supported me,” Mast added when asked why Cooper attended his swearing-in party. “This is stuff taken off social media, and Facebook. I never authorized it.”
Mast said Cooper “was one of those people who bounces from idea to idea to idea. I don’t know if he thought he was doing something good for himself, or if he thought he was doing something good for me. I couldn’t say. But there was never a discussion of ‘Would you consider doing this?’ or ‘I’d like for you to do this’ or anything else.”
A Florida district court agreed to an FTC request to temporarily freeze the company’s assets earlier this month. The FTC alleges Cooper, through his two companies World Patent Marketing Inc. and Desa Industries, charged customers thousands of dollars to patent and market their inventions.
Customers were initially charged nearly $1,300 for a research report from the marketing company, according to the FTC. Then, several weeks later, salespeople would pitch the same clients on patent protection and invention-promotion packages ranging between $8,000 to $65,000, according to the FTC filing.
Cooper and his company associates would not follow through on their promised services, according to federal officials, but would first string clients along and then threaten criminal prosecution to discourage complaints.
“In the end, after months or even years of stringing them along, Defendants leave most of their customers with nothing,” the FTC said in its filing.
Multiple attempts to contact Cooper and his lawyers via phone, email and Facebook were unsuccessful.
Source: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/florida-mast-marketing-scandal-236103
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