Joe Conason Reports ACORN Hoax Lawsuit On Salon.com

[Hissyspit]

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/07/14/acorn/index.html?source=newsletter

WEDNESDAY, JUL 14, 2010 18:39 ET

ACORN hoax victim files lawsuit against O'Keefe and Giles
Falsely portrayed as promoting teenage prostitution in the ACORN videotapes, Juan Carlos Vera is seeking damages

BY JOE CONASON

One of the many victims of Andrew Breitbart’s ACORN video hoax is finally striking back in court, against pseudo-pimp James O’Keefe and pseudo-ho Hannah Giles if not Breitbart himself. Former San Diego ACORN office employee Juan Carlos Vera, who was falsely portrayed in a heavily edited videotape as conspiring with O’Keefe and Giles to traffic underage girls across the Mexican border, is suing both of the right-wing filmmakers, seeking $75,000 in damages under California’s privacy statutes.

Filed last week in the U.S. District Court in San Diego, Vera’s brief complaint claims that O’Keefe, Giles and up to 20 unnamed parties violated his "reasonable expectation of privacy" by conspiring to secretly videotape him and then posting the tapes on the Internet without his consent, causing him to lose his job and other damages. Indeed, as the complaint notes, the "pimp and prostitute" explicitly asked Vera whether their conversation would be confidential.

- snip -

But as California Attorney General Jerry Brown discovered when he investigated the ACORN matter last spring, the actual meaning of the Vera tape was severely distorted by dishonest editing to suggest that he had agreed to help smuggle young girls for O’Keefe’s mythical brothel. To obtain unedited versions of the tapes from O’Keefe, Brown gave him and Giles immunity from any criminal prosecution under the state privacy statutes.

What really happened in the San Diego ACORN office, as Fox News and many other outlets neglected to report, was that immediately after O’Keefe and Giles departed, Vera called a cousin who is a detective in the National City Police Department to report the planned crime. Police detectives later confirmed Vera’s effort to local news outlets and to the California attorney general’s office. When Vera learned that O'Keefe and Giles were hoaxing him, he again called the police, who terminated their investigation.

MORE

[Luminous Animal]

1. ACORN shut down aided and abetted by our Democratic "leadership" and many people on DU.

Very few people here have a clue what entails building up an organization like ACORN. Decades of devotion to empowwrig a political voiceless community. There is a lot of uninformed crap that is thrown around this site but the pile on attack against ACORN made me cry bitter tears. Liberals, Dems, and our "leaders" in Congress screwed over one of the most effective organizations that represent the least of us.

[Luminous Animal]

2. I have to add. I hope each and every one of you who jumped onto demonizing

ACORN take a good long look inside yourself and how easily you and your "leaders" are led by the nose by the right wing.

[The Magistrate]

3. Hear Hear, Ma'am....

[Raster]

5. No shit!

[LostinVA]

13. +1

[MattBaggins]

14. Not one; not a single one of the ACORN bashers on DU

has offered even the slightest apology.

Not one of them.

[fasttense]

4. And President Obama did not fight for the organization

that helped get him into office. He signed an unconstitutional law in order to placate RepubliCONS It destroyed ACORN. It always amazed me how easily he turned his back on the group.

[Raster]

6. Obama is a P-O-L-I-T-I-C-I-A-N!

A politician's first order of business is to get elected to office, and will say and do just about anything to do so.

A politician's second order of business is to stay in office, and will say and do just about anything to do so.

[UpInArms]

8. and taking that a bit further - any news anchor that you see is only trying to

keep their own face on the screen.

[Raster]

12. True dat. Save us from politicians and news anchors!

[xchrom]

7. indeed. nt

[Hissyspit]

9. .

[Erose999]

10. I told the freep crowd from the start that the people on those videos were just going along with

O'Kweefe and Giles to get information to turn over to the police. The lawsuits brought against ACORN so far show that the every one people who appeared to capitulate in the videos later called the authorities about what had happened.

[gratuitous]

11. I'm sure that in the interest of fairness and balance

Every major news outlet in the country will have wall-to-wall billboard coverage of this lawsuit, right?

Oooh listen: Crickets!

So what if a lot of people's lives were ruined, and an agency that did so much to help poor people access the system went down? There was dynamite visuals of James O'Keefe strutting around in his ridiculous pimp costume! Besides, it's not like anyone hurt by Breitbart's little stunt ever go to the right cocktail parties, so it's all good.