The Federal Communications Commission today fined Philadelphia talk show host Lou Gentile $10,000 for allegedly operating an unlicensed radio station. Gentile runs the Lou Gentile Show, a streaming Web site that broadcasts talk about "paranormal, alternative, unusual and other-than-mainstream topics." He describes himself as an investigator "who has personally experienced ghosts and violent hauntings for over 20 years."

Gentile insists that the charges against him are false. "It's BS," he told lasarletter.com. "It's just ridiculous." He contends that although pirate stations in the Philadelphia area rebroadcast his programs, often aired on licensed AM outlets, he has never run a station himself.

The FCC first issued a warning to Gentile in May of 2004 after monitoring broadcast signals that Commission agents say came from his Philadelphia home. FCC documents charge that in June of 2004 he admitted to two field agents that he had operated a station without a license on May 6, a claim that Gentile disputes. "They never came in the house," he says. "They never found a transmitter"

The talk show host received a notice of apparent liability from the FCC in November of 2004. In his response, Gentile denied having ever admitted broadcasting from his home. But today's forfeiture order insists that he did just that.

"Contrary to Mr. Gentile's claim that nothing has ever been found at his house," the notice states, "agents observed a transmitting antenna on the roof of 4727 Oakmont Street and a coaxial cable going from the antenna on the roof into the basement of the house. Mr. Gentile provides no explanation for the inconsistency between his contemporaneous admission on June 9, 2004 that he operated the station, which was documented by FCC agents, and his recantation of such admission . . . "

Gentile says that he will appeal today's FCC decision. "It's just another big bully type of move that the FCC is doing in order to prove a point that no matter what they say or do they basically do what they want."