They claimed that they were receiving the public signals on their tiny little antennas which were significantly under the quarter wavelength that you need to receive them.

While maybe possible, the science and engineering were continuously obfuscated (for no really good reason--since this kind of advance would be very patentable and profitable), and they never actually produced a convincing demonstration that they were doing what they actually claimed.

If they were actually doing this, they were skirting the edge of the law.

In reality, they seemed to be receiving the signals on a single big antenna elsewhere, and then copying from that signal. This is quite clearly illegal in current law, and is what they actually got slapped for.