Griffin: ‘The settlements entered in this case prohibit defendants from directing robocalls to Arkansas’

LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Tim Griffin today announced that his office recently won judgments in a Florida-based robocall scheme and issued the following statement:

“After billions of annoying robocalls and years of litigation, I am proud to announce that Arkansans will no longer be bothered by unwanted calls from Health Advisors of America (HAA) or their principals. I applaud the work of my staff and our coalition of states that have scored a major win over robocallers.

“Unwanted calls are a nuisance to every Arkansan. The settlements entered in this case prohibit these defendants from directing robocalls to Arkansas, giving peace to Arkansans who have been plagued with unlawful and annoying calls from these bad actors. While we celebrate this victory, there is still much work to be done to rid Arkansas of robocalls. I will continue to combat the deceptive and bothersome tactics of robocallers.”

Under the settlements entered in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Florida-based HAA, along with defendants Scott Shapiro and Michael Theron Smith, Jr., can no longer make robocalls or work with companies that make robocalls in Arkansas and its other coalition states of Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio and Texas. The court ordered monetary judgments totaling $146,153,860 for Shapiro, Smith and HAA, though payments will be largely suspended as long as the defendants continue to abide by the terms of the settlement.

The settlement is part of a larger case that began in 2020 against John Caldwell Spiller II and Jakob Mears, the owners of Texas-based Rising Eagle Capital Group LLC and JSquared Telecom LLC, as well as Rising Eagle Capital Group–Cayman. The lawsuit alleged violations of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the federal Telemarketing Sales Rule, and various state consumer protection laws.

The Smith/HAA judgment can be read here. The Shapiro judgment can be read here.

About Attorney General Tim Griffin

Tim Griffin was sworn in as the 57th Attorney General of Arkansas on January 10, 2023, having previously served as the state’s 20th Lieutenant Governor from 2015-2023. From 2011-2015, Griffin served as the 24th representative of Arkansas’s Second Congressional District, where he served on the House Committee on Ways and Means, House Armed Services Committee, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, House Committee on Ethics and House Committee on the Judiciary while also serving as a Deputy Whip for the Majority.

Griffin has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for more than 26 years and currently holds the rank of colonel. In 2005, Griffin was mobilized to active duty as an Army prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and served with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Mosul, Iraq.

He is currently serving as the Commander of the 2d Legal Operations Detachment in New Orleans, Louisiana. His previous assignments include serving as the Commander of the 134th Legal Operations Detachment at Fort Liberty (née Bragg), North Carolina, and as a Senior Legislative Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Pentagon. Griffin earned a master’s degree in strategic studies as a Distinguished Honor Graduate from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

Griffin also served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs for President George W. Bush; Special Assistant to Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice; Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Arkansas; Senior Investigative Counsel, Government Reform and Oversight Committee, U.S. House of Representatives; and Associate Independent Counsel, Office of Independent Counsel David M. Barrett, In re: HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros.

Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College in Conway, and Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He attended graduate school at Oxford University. He is admitted to practice law in Arkansas (active) and Louisiana (inactive). Griffin attends Immanuel Baptist Church and lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.

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