In 2009, workers at offices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a collection of autonomous community based organizations that advocated for low and moderate income families, were secretly recorded by conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe. The videos purported to show low-level ACORN employees in several cities providing advice to Giles and O'Keefe on how to avoid taxes and detection by the authorities with regard to their plans to engage in tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution.
The videos were published on Andrew Breitbart's website BigGovernment from September through November 2009. They generated extensive, negative publicity for ACORN, and led to the United States Census Bureau and the IRS ending their contracts with ACORN, the U.S. Congress suspending its funding, and ACORN losing most of its private funding. This was despite several independent investigations that by December 2009 appeared to reveal that no criminal activity by ACORN staff had taken place.
ACORN filed for Chapter 7 liquidation on November 2, 2010, effectively closing the organization.ACORN filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy; Los Angeles Times; November 2, 2010Hays, Tom. Associated Press, "New York Federal Appeals Court rules against ACORN", carried at Dayton Daily News, August 13, 2010
Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe Hannah Giles is an American conservative activist who achieved national attention alongside James O'Keefe as a featured player in videos they had secretly filmed in encounters at offices belonging to ACORN. At the time, Giles was studying journalism at Florida International University."Citizen Journalists' Path to Celebrity Paved With Ups, Downs" by Erika Lovely, Politico, 11-30-2009; retrieved 12-02-2009 Giles and O'Keefe spent $1,300 to accomplish what The Washington Post reporters called a "Mission to Fell ACORN".
O'Keefe, an activist-filmmaker and self-described "progressive radical" (media coverage describes him as a conservative), worked for Morton Blackwell at the Leadership Institute. He has made additional secret videos since then which were found to have been heavily edited to misrepresent his subjects, or present them in the worst light.NPR: O'Keefe 'Inappropriately Edited' Video; Exec's Words Still 'Egregious'"; NPR; Mark Memmott; March 14, 2011Elements Of NPR Gotcha Video Taken Out Of Context; NPR; David Folkenflik; March 14, 2011
Hidden camera recordings and video releases In July and August 2009, Giles and O'Keefe visited ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, San Bernardino, San Diego, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami. Giles dressed as a prostitute, while O'Keefe wore white khakis with a blue dress shirt and/or tie and claimed to be her boyfriend. Giles and O'Keefe recorded the encounters using hidden cameras and pretended to be seeking advice on how to run an illegal business that included the use of underage girls in the sex trade.
September 2009 Videos from the visits to ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, San Bernardino, and San Diego were released between September 10 and September 17, 2009, and were used to launch Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment website."Why Big Government Could Make Andrew Breitbart the Right's Huffington""The ACORN Videos: Did NPR Ignore Them?"
In the videos, O'Keefe included lead-in segments in which he wore a fur coat, top hat, sunglasses, and wielded a cane, giving viewers and the media the impression that he had dressed that way when visiting the ACORN offices. His critics cite this as one of the ways he distorted the videos, since he actually dressed professionally during his ACORN visits, though he never revealed himself on camera in the ACORN offices.
The Baltimore employees were fired by ACORN after the video was released.
Tresa Kaelke, a California employee on the videos, stated she believed the activists were joking and made a variety of absurd or joking statements to them. She said they were "somewhat entertaining, but they weren't even good actors."Fox News, September 16, 2009, Fourth Videotape Reveals ACORN Advising 'Pimp', 'Prostitute' in California On the other hand, her office supervisor, Christina Spach, said Kaelke "pretended to cooperate with O'Keefe and Giles because she feared for her safety." Kaelke responded to the pair's requests for help setting up a child-prostitution ring on the video by claiming to be an ex-prostitute and exclaiming, "Heidi Fleiss is my hero!"Obama and ACORN, September 16, 2010; The Wall Street Journal; James Taranto The California Attorney General's investigation of Kaelke determined that "none of her claims" on the video were true, that "she was playing along with what she perceived as a joke", and there was "no evidence she had ever engaged in prostitution." According to CNN, the filmmakers released a transcript of their discussion with Kaelke that included a comment left out of the originally released tape in which Kaelke said that ACORN would have nothing to do with their prostitution business.TRANSCRIPTS CNN; September 17, 2009; Lou Dobbs Tonight Kaelke was fired by ACORN after the videos were released.
In the San Diego office, edited video showed ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera telling O'Keefe he had "contacts" in "Tijuana" to help get underage girls across the border.September 22, 2009, Fox, ACORN Worker fired over video sting But, after the discussion with O'Keefe, Vera reported O'Keefe's fabricated plan for human smuggling to police.Maddow: "Raw footage reveals O'Keefe lied about ACORN tapes" . Rawstory. April 7, 2010.September 22, 2009, Fox News, "ACORN Worker in Video Reported Duo to Police" Vera was fired for what ACORN called "unacceptable conduct". Vera had said he tried to help the fake prostitute because she said that she needed to escape her controlling pimp.10 News, San Diego News, September 17, 2009, "ACORN Worker Fired After Appearance In Undercover Video" On July 8, 2010, after the AG's Report confirmed that he had contacted the police to try to thwart the couple's smuggling plan, Vera filed a civil suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California against O'Keefe and Giles for recording him without his permission, which was a violation of California law. In July 2012, Giles settled the case paying Vera $50,000, and in March 2013, O'Keefe settled, paying $100,000.
ACORN response In response to release of the first videos, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said on Fox News on September 20, 2009, "[i]n a way, this was good for us, so what it did was show up to us what weaknesses we have, and we have moved swiftly ... in order to correct that." She said that after viewing the tapes, she had fired all the employees featured and had begun a comprehensive external investigation. As ACORN learned more from its employees of what had taken place, it called the videos "false" and "defamatory". A spokesman accused O'Keefe of dubbing the audio on the videos. On September 23, 2009, ACORN filed suit in a Baltimore court against the filmmakers, citing "extreme emotional distress" of the ACORN workers and violation of two-party consent recording laws. It later allowed the suit to lapse. Docket note: disposed, lack of service.
October 2009 On October 21, O'Keefe and Giles released video footage of their visit to the Philadelphia office of ACORN at a National Press Club conference. They claimed it was to show they had received help there, after an ACORN spokesman had said that the pair had been asked to leave the Philadelphia office.Susan Kinzie, "Duo release another video of their meeting with ACORN worker; latest footage has audio of two conservatives but not of the staff member", The Washington Post, October 22, 2009 The Washington Post "obtained a July 24 police report that showed police were called when O'Keefe and Giles attempted their sting at ACORN's Philadelphia offices—and that the couple were escorted out of those offices." Susan Kinzie of The Washington Post noted that "the heavily edited footage includes audio of the two conservatives but none of the ACORN Housing Corp. worker's responses to their questions." Junette Marcano, a board member of Philadelphia ACORN, said, "This is a targeted assault to disenfranchise our members because ... the right-wing agenda is to stop us from empowering people of low and moderate incomes. When you make the poor powerful, the powerful feel threatened."
Carol Leonnig, a The Washington Post staff writer who attended the press conference, said in an interview that day on Fox News that, in explaining why the audio portion did not include the worker's responses, O'Keefe said, "on the one hand, the pair are concerned about the legal ramifications."Interview of Carol Leonnig by Greta Van Susteren, On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, October 21, 2009. O'Keefe claimed secondly "that the tape battery died." Commenting on the Philadelphia video, Leonnig said "when you go to this office, and you see this tape, I don't think he's got the goods to say that ACORN lied." Both Giles and O'Keefe declined to answer questions after the release of the October video.
+ October press conference release ACORN Office Location Video release date Transcript release date Date video taken Number of videos / total time Transcript PhiladelphiaFilmmakers Show Video of ACORN 'Sting' in Philadelphia, Fox News, October 21, 20092009-10-21 Not available 2009-07-24 1 / Unknown Not released
Aftermath for ACORN On March 19, 2010, The New York Times reported that ACORN was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy; 15 of the group's 30 state chapters had disbanded over the past six months, and other chapters (including the largest, in New York and California) had renamed themselves and severed all ties to the national organization. Two unnamed ACORN officials told the Times that the following weekend, a teleconference was planned to discuss a bankruptcy filing; "private donations from foundations to ACORN [had] all but evaporated." The federal government had ended contracts with the group related to organizing counts in urban areas for the Census and work for the IRS. "[L]ong before the activist videos delivered what may become the final blow, the organization was dogged for years by financial problems and accusations of fraud." Former co-chairwoman of ACORN's Maryland chapter Sonja Merchant-Jones said: "That 20-minute video ruined 40 years of good work. But if the organization had confronted its own internal problems, it might not have been taken down so easily."
On March 22, 2010, National ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan says the organization's board decided to close remaining state affiliates and field offices by April 1 because of falling revenues. On April 20, the ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis reported that ACORN was "still alive. We're limping along. We're on life support." Lewis said that ACORN's annual budget had been reduced from $25 million to $4 million, and that its staff of 350 to 600 people had been reduced to four. Lewis explained the controversy had left a stain on ACORN, "sort of like a scarlet letter." It had forced the group to spend money to respond to "one investigation after another."
Response by government and state authorities