D.C. wins lawsuit against digital sign venture that helped spark Jack Evans scandal

As litigation continued between the District and investors over signs installed by Digi Outdoor Media, a judge allowed some, including these two at Metro Center station in downtown Washington, to be turned on. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

The District has won a long-running lawsuit against an outdoor advertising company that hoped to install dozens of digital signs throughout the city.

The lawsuit, which the District initiated in 2016, aimed to stop a venture later connected to a scandal that would engulf former D.C. Council member Jack Evans and lead to his resignation in January.

The District said the digital signs violated city code. The multimillion-dollar sign venture relied largely on what some called a loophole in the code that allowed for digital signs “within a building.” Backers of the venture said that “within a building” included signs under overhangs and in other places that faced outward to sidewalks and streets.

During the lawsuit, D.C. Superior Court Judge Florence Pan allowed some signs deemed compliant with city code to stand. But on Monday, she ruled that dozens more either had to come down or could not be built.

In her opinion, Pan wrote that instead of seeking approval for its signs, the company “chose to ‘fly under the radar,’ in an attempt to establish vested rights before the District caught on” to its plan.

D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine called the decision a “major victory for the District.”

He said in a statement: “Lawbreakers, including companies that regularly contribute money to D.C. politicians, are on notice that the Office of the Attorney General will investigate and prosecute, without fear nor favor, companies and individuals who violate the law.”

An executive with the sign venture, Scott Macintosh of Lumen Eight Media Group, said the decision should “create extreme concern” for all D.C. businesses and that the company will appeal.

Under the ruling, “any business could have the regulatory carpet pulled out from under them at any time by the executive branch and apparently without any recourse,” Macintosh said in a statement. “We intend to correct this not only on behalf of our company but all businesses in DC.”

The sign venture was started by Donald MacCord, whose company, Digi Outdoor Media, embarked in early 2016 on what the D.C. attorney general’s office would later call in a court filing “a blitz of illegal construction.”

That year, MacCord arranged for Evans’s one-man consulting firm, NSE Consulting, to receive $50,000 and 200,000 shares of stock in MacCord’s company, The Washington Post later reported. Evans has said he returned both before pushing legislation that would have torpedoed the District’s lawsuit and allowed the sign venture to continue.

Evans tried but failed to gather enough votes to advance the legislation. He has said that the money was to be a retainer for consulting work he had planned to do for the sign venture, but that he reconsidered because of potential conflicts of interest.

The relationship between Evans and MacCord was first reported by Jeffrey Anderson of the website District Dig, who reported that MacCord offered an internship to Evans’s son. His son declined the offer.

MacCord pleaded guilty in 2018 to wire fraud related to the sign venture and is now in federal prison. The charge was not related to his dealings with Evans.

In 2018 and 2019, federal grand juries issued subpoenas to District officials for documents relating to Evans’s relationship with the sign venture. Evans has not been charged, and he is running for the Ward 2 council seat he gave up before his colleagues could expel him for ethics violations related to MacCord and other clients of Evans’s consulting firm.

After MacCord became mired in legal trouble, investors in the sign venture continued their fight to install the signs through Lumen Eight Media.