Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes has concluded his investigation into possible criminality on the part of three ACORN employees caught on video giving advice to a couple posing as a prostitute and companion. (Though the right-wing gadflies who made the hidden camera video edited it to suggest that James O'Keefe was posing as the woman's pimp, the couple actually told ACORN employees he was trying to protect her from the pimp [PDF].) Yesterday Hynes cleared ACORN of any criminality, while perpetuating the misconception that O'Keefe had posed as a pimp and worn a cliche pimp costume during the meeting (he did not).:
On September 15, 2009, my office began an investigation . The three had been secretly videotaped by two people posing as a pimp and prostitute, who came to ACORN’S Brooklyn office, seeking advice about how to purchase a house with money generated by their ‘business.’ The ‘couple’ later made the recording public. That investigation is now concluded and no criminality has been found.
Of course, being exonerated doesn't undo the damage done to ACORN (short for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), a group the Times describes as "an influential national organization known for left-leaning voter activism and work on moderate-income housing." The negative publicity sparked by the videos contributed to Congress cutting funding for the group, which has since rebranded in New York as New York Communities for Change, under the same leadership as before.
Kevin Whelan, an Acorn spokesman, said in a statement that the group had been attacked "because of our successful work to empower hundreds of thousands of low- and moderate-families as voters and active citizens. Hopefully today’s announcement, and similar results from independent reviews, will make politicians and media examine the facts more carefully the next time a valuable community organization is attacked."
