Report: James O'Keefe To Pay $100K Settlement To Former ACORN Employee

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Sorry, but when people are on tape trying to tell someone how to legally traffic human beings, they have committed a crime.

The fact that one of these people get's $100,000 for doing so merely because he was being recorded without his consent is absolutely criminal.

Falling for the ACORN Hoax ? FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

Last fall, O’Keefe was widely lauded for a string of undercover videos he and colleague Hannah Giles produced that allegedly exposed lax ethical standards at the community-organizing group ACORN. “You guys ought to be getting, you know, a journalism award for this,” Fox News’ Sean Hannity (9/20/09) told the duo.

The ACORN videos promoted the false premise that he and Giles had entered those offices posing as a pimp and prostitute and gotten advice on how to conceal their illegal activities. O’Keefe appeared on Fox & Friends (9/7/09; Media Matters, 2/17/10) in what the host described as “exactly in the same outfit that he wore to these ACORN offices”—a ridiculous costume reminiscent of ’70s blaxploitation films

Yet the videos O’Keefe and Giles released never actually show him dressed as a pimp inside ACORN offices, and ACORN employees contended he entered in business casual attire. Despite repeated claims to the contrary by both O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart, the conservative media producer whose Big Government website featured the videos (Stage Right Show, 2/16/10; Washington Times, 9/21/09), Giles herself admitted (Washington Independent, 2/19/10) that footage of O’Keefe in pimp costume was “purely B-roll,” and disingenuously asserted that “we never claimed that he went in with a pimp costume.”

Former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger (Independent Governance Assessment of ACORN, 12/7/09) had much earlier found that not only did O’Keefe enter ACORN offices dressed as “a college student,” but actually introduced himself as a student trying to help Giles escape an abusive pimp.

In his report, Harshbarger, who was himself denied full viewing of the tapes, concluded:

The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O’Keefe’s and Ms. Giles’s comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.

O'Keefe made up his ACORN expose and brought down an organization that was doing good work in their communities

Score one for the bad guys

It was doing good for perceived democratic voters.

 

[Truthmatters]

I believe the guy has other charges on him too

 

[Synthaholic]

And James O'Keefe believed the ACORN people when they responded to his inquiry.

No, he edited to tape.

 

[Synthaholic]

Doesn't seem to be a big victory here for the Democrat party!

Who claimed it was?

Your desperation is quite evident. And kinda funny to read.

 

[paperview]

I believe the guy has other charges on him too

He's still on criminal probation for his Landrieu shenanigans.

 

[Synthaholic]

Duh. He didn't know the guy suggesting criminal activity until the guys suggested criminal activity.

Apparently, right wingers can read minds. Too bad they don't read books.

You write that in response and you have the audacity to suggest the right read books? You would think youd take your own advice. But I guess having a piece of paper from a school tells you that you know everything. Why read more when you already know it?

You would think youd be able to read and address the question about why when the guy suggested criminal activity, why did he give him advice instead of calling the police?

Shockingly you just responded he wouldnt know the guy was suggesting criminal activity and youd have to read minds to know someone asking you how to commit crimes was suggesting criminal activity.

Seriously, is it that difficult to be honest and actually address the question instead of making ridiculous silly statements and thinking you are intelligent for doing so?

He did call the police.

Avatar is willfully ignorant. It's a requirement of his cult.

 

[Papageorgio]

According to court documents obtained by Wonkette, conservative activist James O'Keefe has agreed to a $100,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed against him by Juan Carlos Vera, a former employee of ACORN. Vera filed the suit against O'Keefe in 2010, alleging O'Keefe had illegally taped their conversation at an ACORN office in California as part of his fraudulent "exposé" of the community activist group.

More: Report: James O'Keefe To Pay $100K Settlement To Former ACORN Employee

Wonket Sexclusive: Totally Blameless Crime-Stopper James O'Keefe To Pay $100,000 To ACORN Criminal

I find this very interesting, depending on your political spectrum, you would find this good news or really nothing. If it was switched and it was an anti-gun person recording a gun owner. Then I bet your response would be quite different.

O'Keefe exposed fraud at ACORN, maybe $100,000 was a cheap price to find out the group's real motivation. I don't think this lawsuit changes the information that was taken. The lawsuit says it should not have been done this way.

 

[paperview]

Was that the one who gave advise to the hooker and the pimp?

No. That was the one who appeared to be giving advice to a hooker and a pimp, due to clever and dishonest editing.

He didn't even present himself as a pimp. He lied and said he was a law student graduate and went in wearing regular clothes.

O'Keefe has millions suckered into thinking he walked into the offices wearing that stoopid huggy bear pimp costume,

 

[paperview]

According to court documents obtained by Wonkette, conservative activist James O'Keefe has agreed to a $100,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed against him by Juan Carlos Vera, a former employee of ACORN. Vera filed the suit against O'Keefe in 2010, alleging O'Keefe had illegally taped their conversation at an ACORN office in California as part of his fraudulent "exposé" of the community activist group.

More: Report: James O'Keefe To Pay $100K Settlement To Former ACORN Employee

Wonket Sexclusive: Totally Blameless Crime-Stopper James O'Keefe To Pay $100,000 To ACORN Criminal

...

O'Keefe exposed fraud at ACORN, maybe $100,000 was a cheap price to find out the group's real motivation. I don't think this lawsuit changes the information that was taken. The lawsuit says it should not have been done this way.

It was investigated thoroughly and he absolutely deceptively edited it - and there was no evidence of criminal activities.

\

Independent investigations were made by state attorney generals of Massachusetts and California, and the U.S. Attorney of Brooklyn, New York; their reports were released beginning in December 2009 and extending through April 2010. The attorney general's office in Massachusetts and the U.S. Attorney for Brooklyn concluded that the ACORN workers had committed no criminal activity and that the videos were "heavily edited" to present material out of context and create a misleading impression of activities.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

The California Attorney General granted immunity to O'Keefe and Giles in exchange for their raw videos shot at three California ACORN offices. Its comparison of the raw videos with the released versions found that the published videos had been heavily edited to misrepresent the workers and the situations so as to suggest criminal intent and activity.[10][11][12][13]

The California report was followed by one by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which reported there was no evidence that ACORN workers had misused government funds or participated in the criminal activities represented in the videos.[14][15] But, ACORN was effectively destroyed by then.[16]

ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You can click on the footnotes and read up to your heart's delight.

The footnotes include the official government reports.

 

[paperview]

Here's some more:

"Nearly two dozen members of Congress requested an investigation after a series of complaints against ACORN and its affiliates. The complaints included an embezzlement matter, several cases of voter registration fraud, and the release of edited and misleading videotapes, secretly made by conservative activists that appeared to implicate ACORN workers in several offices facilitating prostitution. In fact the staff in most of ACORN's offices turned the pair away, reported the couple to the police, refused to provide them any aid, and in one case tried to convince the phony prostitute to get counseling. In no ACORN office did employees file any paperwork or do anything illegal on the duo's behalf."

John Atlas: ACORN Vindicated of Wrongdoing by the Congressional Watchdog Office

The Attorney General's Office found that O'Keefe had misrepresented the actions of ACORN workers and that the workers had not committed illegal actions. The GAO found that ACORN had managed its federal funds appropriately. LINK

 

[Synthaholic]

NPR CEO resigns over James O'Keefe's video showing NPR executive slamming tea party movement - YouTube
NPR CEO resigns over James O'Keefe's video showing NPR executive slamming tea

What does that have to do with the OP?

Oh, yeah - nothing.

 

[Truthmatters]

the right will just dimiss the truth as always and retell all the lies

 

[paperview]

Can we all agree it's a good thing the law-breaker O'Keefe (still n probation) has to shell out 100,000.00 and was forced to issue an apology to the man whose reputation he slimed?

Kenya at least be happy about that?

I mean, had he decided to go to trial, like he said he was going to, to clear it all up, we might have found out all kinds of other dastardly things about his ...er, craft.

 

[paperview]

A good story from the Atlantic yesterday on something else good journalists do - and another reason no right winger should ever, ever, ever consider anything that emanates from Breitbart (the guy who paid O'Keefe to do the story) is good journalism.

"After making Vera look like an eager would-be sex trafficker, what did Breitbart and O'Keefe do when it was reported that he had in fact called the police? What did they do when the California Attorney General investigated the case and affirmed as much?

Did they append a correction to the story and apologize? Did they do what they could to give this man back his reputation?

They did not.

When last I wrote about this story in 2010, long after all the facts had come to light, there was no correction appended to the story. And look at the page today: The original story is still up with no correction, no clarification, no editor's note -- nothing.

Andrew Breitbart and James O'Keefe Ruined Him, and Now He Gets $100,000 - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

For an innocent group, why did ACORN disband almost immediately after O'Keefe outed them?

almost immediately? poor Frank, reality challenged

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia