I saw a case in Florida where a pirate was fined $10,000 by the FCC. He submitted tax statements to the FCC stating he could not afford the fine. So, the FCC lowered it to $500. However, he was caught again a couple years later and was fined $20,000. I haven't seen the outcome of that one.
I have seen several radio station fined for various violations submit tax info and had their fines lowered.
We had a pirate station in Nashville last year which transmitted 5-7 miles out as far as I could tell. He was never caught by the FCC, but shut down voluntarily when approached by engineers from a couple radio stations in the area who told him he was interfering with their signals. I don't know how true this is as I saw it on a Google Message Board for East Nashville. The only way I knew the guy was on, he was interfering with my little CCrane FM Transmitter which I use to stream audio when I am working in the yard. It is only good for a couple hundred feet, but when he was on, it was more like 20 feet.
