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Video Sting On Acorn Shows Staffers Helping "Hooker"
By
John Del Signore
Published Sep 14, 2009
Modified Sep 14, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Sep 14, 2009
Modified Sep 14, 2009
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Two right-wing filmmakers have teamed up with Fox News to conduct a juicy hidden-camera exposé on the community advocacy group ACORN, a group conservatives hate because it receives government funding to help the indigent. According to Fox, filmmaker James O'Keefe, 25, dressed as a cliche pimp and sought housing advice at ACORN offices in New York. Joined by his partner Hannah Giles, 20, who posed as a prostitute, O'Keefe claims to have told employees he needed a house to run a brothel and help Giles escape an abusive pimp.
The heavily-edited videos (below) depict ACORN employees credulously advising the couple on how to get a mortgage and tax breaks for a house without attracting the attention of law enforcement. At one point, a staffer says, "Honesty is not going to get you the house. You can't say what you do for a living." Another advises, "When you buy the house with a back yard. You get a tin... and bury it down in there, and you put the money right in, and you put grass over it, and you don't tell a single soul but yourself where it is." Giles also informs staffers she has young teenagers from El Salvador working for her as prostitutes, and the staffers warn her "don't get caught—it's against the law what you are doing, and there's a chance you'll get caught."
Yeah, it doesn't look good, and the ACORN employees come off as remarkably dimwitted as they patiently share tips on how the couple can keep their prostitution earnings off the books. A similar hidden-camera visit to ACORN offices in Baltimore and Washington, DC resulted in the termination of four employees, and Rep. Charles Boustany of Louisiana has called for a hearing to investigate ACORN.
In a statement, ACORN Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis fired back at Fox: "This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we've all recently seen. I am appalled and angry; I cannot and I will not defend the actions of the workers depicted in the video, who have since been terminated... We are the boogeyman for the right-wing and its echo chambers. If ACORN did not exist, the right-wing would have needed to create us in order to achieve their agenda, their missions, their ideal, retrograde America."
Tagged
acorn
bust
fox news
hooker
nyc
prostitute
right wing
sting
video
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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