Three brothers in New Jersey will pay $1.66 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging they made 59.6 million harassing phone calls.

Environmental Safety International, an international environmental security company run by Sean Carney and Joseph Carney, and Carbo, a telemarketing company run by Raymond Carney, use the phones to sell septic and septic tank cleaning products, the Justice Department said on Friday.

The Carney brothers agreed to accept $10.2 million in civil fines, most of which were suspended, the Justice Department said. They will actually pay $1.66 million and confiscate $774000 of property. They also agreed not to charge $164402 in unpaid payments from customers.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), between January 2018 and December 2020, the two companies worked together to conduct tens of millions of illegal telemarketing.

The DoJ indictment said the calls violated the Federal Trade Commission's telemarketing sales rules, which required telemarketers to disclose the identity of the seller and required callers to skip the number on the do-not-call register.