It has filed suit in Balitmore, Maryland, claiming the pair violated Maryland law when they secretly videotaped ACORN employees offering advice on how to set up a brothel. The group also claims, hilariously enough, that the employees suffered "extreme emotional distress." The videos appeared at Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, which documents corruption in the federal government.
That’s the leftist revenge against James O’Keefe and Hanna Giles, 25 and 20, who disguised themselves as pimp and prostitute, then filmed in ACORN offices across the country. In Baltimore, Brooklyn, Washington, San Diego, and San Bernardino, the pair received housing and tax advice from ACORN employees on opening a brothel and smuggling underage girls across the border to work in the place. The employee in San Bernardino said she was merely playing along with the pair, and the one in San Diego says he notified the authorities about them.
After the videos emerged, ACORN’s political support vanished. The Census Bureau ended its relationship with the group, which was supposed to help with the 2010 population count. The U.S. Senate voted 83-7 to end funding for ACORN via the federal Housing and Urban Development Department. The House passed a bill 346-75 to end funding. Since 1994, ACORN has received $53 million in taxpayer funds.
Most recently, the Internal Revenue Service announced that it cut ACORN from its program offering volunteer tax advice.
After initially denouncing the films and threatening to sue Fox News and O’Keefe and Giles, ACORN chieftain Bertha Lewis was forced to admit the organizations’ problems. Defeat apparently prompted her to enlist the former Attorney General of Massachusetts, Scott Harshbarger, to audit ACORN and make suggestions about how the organization can monitor itself and regain the country’s trust.
So now, ACORN sues. No word on how much taxpayer money will be used in the lawsuit.
