YouTube - ACORN prostitution investigation by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, Part 1
Several ACORN employees have been caught on hidden camera video giving out tax advice and other advice on operating a prostitution business, including advice on the sex trafficking of children being brought in from Central America for child prostitution. Now being called the Acorn Scandal, one video was filmed at ACORN's Baltimore office in Charles Village, while the other was filmed at their office in Washington, D.C.
ACORN is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. They are a nonpartisan organization whose goal is to work on issues like voter registration and advocating for affordable housing in the inner cities. While their work in the inner cities has been praised by Democrats, allegations of corruption and improper conduct have made them a popular target for Republican attacks. In particular, Republicans claimed that ACORN workers were filing fraudulent voter registration cards prior to the 2008 elections. The release of these videos brings the questions about ACORN to an entirely new level.
While the two videos are getting a tremendous amount of attention on Facebook and YouTube, it should be noted that the workers at other ACORN locations turned the couple away when they sought similar advice. In other words, out of all the ACORN locations the filmmakers went to, only two offices had employees who gave such bad advice. This could indicate that the problem is more localized with specific acts of stupidity, rather than being a nationwide problem within the organization.
While giving tax advice to a prostitute so she can buy a house is not an unreasonable undertaking for an ACORN worker whose job is to assist the inner city poor, the workers in these videos show a disregard for much more serious legal issues that should have stopped them in their tracks.
The videos, filmed by Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, show ACORN workers giving advice to a couple posing to be a law student and his prostitute girlfriend. The young man, who claims to be a law student with political ambitions, is frustrated because they cannot get a bank to loan them the money to buy a house. While his girlfriend is claimed to have a high income, no bank will approve the loan because her income as a prostitute is not documented and is illegally earned.
In the videos, the man and woman tell the ACORN employees that they are also bringing in underage girls from El Salvador to work as prostitutes. The purpose of buying the house is for the woman and the child prostitutes to live there and use it as a brothel. The children are specifically stated to be 15 years old or younger.
The advice of the ACORN employees is for the woman to make it a “legal” business, so that she can claim income and expenses to file tax returns. Contrary to what the makers of the video indicate, this specific portion of her advice is not the problem. It may be this small portion of the video that ACORN is using to say the workers did nothing illegal, but unfortunately for them the story goes on from there.
The problems arise when they start telling the woman to falsify information and start giving her advice on how to operate her underage brothel. Most notably, she is advised that she does not have to report the income of the illegal immigrant child prostitutes because they do not have social security numbers, and that she can claim the child sex slaves as dependents since they are under the age of 16. The advice for the man includes lying to the police and claiming not to know what is going on in the house, should his girlfriend ever get caught. Otherwise, according to the worker, he will jeopardize his law practice and his political career.
In fairness to the ACORN workers, they are taken into the issue gradually. The filmmakers start with asking advice on how to document her income as a prostitute so that she can get a mortgage, and over time descends into advice about illegally importing child prostitutes into the U.S. to work in a brothel. The ACORN workers aren't hit with the whole story up front, but they still learn the nature of the business quickly enough that they should have handled the matter differently.
ACORN has fired the workers, but also states that they did nothing illegal. That's not entirely true. While they may have started with good intentions with the initial idea of helping a prostitute be able to get a mortgage, by the time they were giving tax advice about pimping children for sex and claiming them as dependents they were well into the realm of illegal conduct.
While there is nothing to indicate the problem originated at the national level of the organization, this is still a serious matter. Rather than rely on what other people say is contained in the videos, watch the videos for yourself and form your own opinions. The first video (in two parts) appears at the top of this article, and the second video (also in two parts) is below.
YouTube - ACORN DC prostitution investigation Part 1
YouTube - ACORN DC prostitution investigation part 2
More on this story is still to come.
See also:
Video: The ACORN pimp shielding network
Chaos for glory: my time with ACORN
Comments
BREAKING NEWS>>.........................
THE CENSUS BUREAU IS CUTTING ALL TIES WITH THE CRIMINAL COMMUNITY ORGANIZING GROUP ACORN.............................................
AGAIN.........CENSUS CUTTING ALL TIES WITH THE CRIMINAL COMMUNITY ORGANIZING GROUP ACORN....
More at 11...........This is WWGBD from Baltimore, back to you
Lefty Irrelevant.
These two independent "investigators" are 25 and 20 years old. I don't think they can afford to, or needed to, go to L A and back. Much less the whole country. Levenson CLAIMS that other smear efforts had been attempted and turned away. He never said it was these two and if ACORN did know about them they would have contacted every chapter in the country to be on the look out. Notice he doesn't want to comment until he's seen the whole video. Well America has seen TWO whole videos. No word from Levenson. Baltimore and DC seem to be in close proximity and if they did turn them away at the other 3 locations that is a 40% failure rate. Sometimes you just have to admit that something is terribly wrong here. What if they did go to 10 places? That's 20%. What does it take to convince you?
This is disgusting but is nothing compared to the greater disgrace of lobbyists, birthers, 10thers, deathers, unnecessary war, "contractors" acting like the animal house in other countries, Katrina, spying on US citizens, etc. Lets put this in its proper perspective - we look at this nonsense while our country is almost down the toilet.
If you like ACORN you'll love Obamacare !
wabassc says: If you like ACORN you'll love Obamacare !
Haha If you need to go to the doctor its at an
ACORN HealthCare Clinic at a neighborhood near you.
You will be greeted by people like these we see on the tapes.
Niiice.
Who are these women, I want to hire them. Wow, just doing their job. I need an advocate, I am becoming Obamanized, I want in before its all gone . I would hire these women on the spot.... ha ha ha
Do people really think that the ACORN staffers were just sitting around hoping that a white pimp and hooker would show up, so they could help them? Or, could they have been thinking that, if they played along with the crazy people asking them questions, that they'd eventually go away quietly?
The transcript that the "biggovernemt" people put up themselves tells a lot, with the "investigators" whispering comments like:
James: [unintelligible whisper] we have to bring it up a notch and start talking about doing illegal things with the taxes
Kenya: [whisper] well just think of [unintelligible]
James: [whisper] yeah
Kenya: [whisper] lets get her to give us a list of advice and get her to follow through with it. We'll ask her to write down a list of things we can write off and
Do people really think that the ACORN staffers were just sitting around hoping that a white pimp and hooker would show up, so they could help them? Or, could they have been thinking that, if they played along with the crazy people asking them questions, that they'd eventually go away quietly?
The transcript that the "biggovernemt" people put up themselves tells a lot, with the "investigators" whispering comments like:
James: [unintelligible whisper] we have to bring it up a notch and start talking about doing illegal things with the taxes
Kenya: [whisper] well just think of [unintelligible]
James: [whisper] yeah
Kenya: [whisper] lets get her to give us a list of advice and get her to follow through with it. We'll ask her to write down a list of things we can write off and
Shameful. Those people acted as low down as Republicans.
It is shameful what those ACORN workers did. They are acting no better than Republicans.
The Great American Citizen Journalists have now released another in Brooklyn NY.
Obamunism is going down like the Titanic.
these two deserve a Pulitzer Prize for investigative work.
Setting up anybody is called a sting. Only law enforcement has that right. If you knew there was a crime you
should have reported it, not baited it into happening with some stupid inner city women. It's wrong, but and invented wrong. They should be fired and anybody else that dumb to concile a crime. But the people who set this up are also criminals, guilty of illegal entrapement. I could get many many republican officials fired with such tactics, that wouldn't make the Republican party illegal. Just go to any govt party with young hookers and see if any of them will play...or gay hookers in evangelical church circles. It doesn't discredit Haggert's church when some people individually break laws when set up to do so. This is CRAP.
Yes, a third video has surfaced. This time from the Brooklyn ACORN office. ACORN threatens a law suit. I really hope they move forward on it. PLEASE sue them ACORN...sue the "ba-Jesus" out of them! Just bring ALL of it to the light of day!
FYI: Possible 4th video tomorrow on Glenn Beck? I just love it whenever ACORN says anything to discredit these film makers, they simply release another video from another office...very smart!
They deserve more than the Pulitzer Prize. They deserve an apology from ACORN and the public's gratitude for their gutsy journalism...OUTSTANDING!
We had a tea party. It was called an election. We kicked the corrupt, criminal Republican gang out of power. They ruined the country. There not coming back for at least 20 yrs. No matter what popcorn head whiners say. The facts are not what you spin. Obama is doing everything right. Trying as hard as he and the smartest advisors can do, considering the disaster left him. The paid weasles at Fox news never really debate in public. They lie all the time. Twist around and tell half truths. Claim guilt by association to Dems but not Repubs
Bush's czar head of faith based innit. was a card carrying socialist and known comunist. Chris Hitchens was a member at the same time and knew him well. Did Faux rant about him....No! America's got Faux News' number and only listen for entertainment....not facts or news.
Ultraman, sorry you are off your psych meds. Get in line when Healthcare Reform comes to town and try to get them, okay?
There is corruption everywhere because so many people are addicted,have low intelligence,are poorly educated or they are power hungry, egotistical, sociopathic, and mentally ill. These people are hired by clinics, political offices, urban leagues, community service industry, grocery stores, telemarketing, some are Drs and lawyers too. So what, a few people were caught being incompetent. Perhaps the ACORN workers could relate to this prosititute, maybe they were exercising what is foreign to stereotypical professional organizations, that of being non judgemental. They brought themselves down to the level of what they perceived the clients were at given their professions. It is good for ACORN to get rid of employees that may not be handling business with the utmost integrity and value. But lets face it, this could happen anywhere and does over and over and over...
Wow, More Republican 'Sour Grapes'.
Come on ya'll this is getting really, really sad and desperate. Give the guy a break - in three more years you can have it back and drag us in to another war with a country with 'weapons of mass destruction'. They'll be another group of young Americans you can sacrifice in the name of 'whatever'.
Sorry, I have to go now a Fox reporter has actually found a WMD in Iraq. hahahahahahaha
The really saddening part is how willing those who support in reality is a criminal enterprise that ACORN is now seen to be, want to defend it by any means. Does calling, those who expose criminal enterprises, nasty names make what ACORN does less flamboyantly illegal?
Thanks for the balanced analysis on this issue!
This was not a crime. The reporter (that's what he is in this case despite later actions) brazenly lied and pretended to be commiting heinous acts. However, they did not commit fraud because everything was unofficial. The only crime committed was when a person acting for a government-funded organization gave legal advice to commit felonies.
There is no restriction on undercover operations to the police. I don't know where you got that from. Otherwise, journalism would be rather limited. The problem is that it will be difficult to put before a jury. The lack of professionalism and accusations of entrapment are a different matter and valid points. However, I do not believe that they invalidate the premise that the ACORN employees committed crimes.
Whether the backlash affecting ACORN is just is yet another question. I would like to see ALL the videos before making that judgement.
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