17. Following the Second World War one broadcaster was charged with 69 counts of treason
During World War II, the FCC operated a site at Silver Hill, Maryland, which monitored and recorded broadcasts emanating from Germany and the rest of Europe, developing an invaluable record of the German propaganda effort. One of the broadcasters routinely monitored was Herbert J. Burgman, who used the stage name Joe Scanlon when broadcasting his program Voice of All Free America. Burgman broadcast directly to American homes, telling them of the widespread epidemics of syphilis and gonorrhea among the American troops in Europe. He also attempted to persuade the American people that the Jewish influence around Franklin Roosevelt (and Winston Churchill) was the true cause of the war, supported by the bolshevism of the Soviet Union.
He was indicted on not fewer than 69 charges of treason against the United States after the war and in a trial which began only after two separate evaluations of his mental state were completed he was convicted of thirteen acts of treason (the number of the indictments was reduced to twenty charges prior to the beginning of the trial). His attorneys argued that he was insane at the time of the broadcasts, driven to that state by fear of the Gestapo. During his trial, his health deteriorated rapidly, and he suffered at least one heart attack. In December 1949, he was sentenced to 6 – 20 years in prison, and he died less than four years later in custody in Springfield, Missouri, on the first anniversary of the death of his fellow traitor, Richard Best.