Federal Grand Jury Seeks Information from ACORN

by Kevin Kane

Amid the paperwork associated with a search warrant served on ACORN’s New Orleans headquarters Friday is a one-sentence acknowledgement by the embattled activist group’s attorneys that it is has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury.

“Regarding the federal grand jury subpoenas, ACORN does not object to the provision of information and documents to the federal government…” reads a letter from Abbe David Lowell of the Washington law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery. The letter was included in court filings from ACORN explaining the legal basis for why they weren’t complying with a subpoena issued by Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, which seeks a wide range of accounting information regarding the group’s many affiliated agencies. Lowell disclosed the federal investigation as he was writing to a New Orleans lawyer representing ACORN’s local outside accountants. The accounting firm of Duplantier, Hrapmann, Hogan & Maher was served with a subpoena from Caldwell, and, apparently, at least two from federal officials. In the letter, Lowell said ACORN was asserting accountant-client privilege, which is recognized in Louisiana, but not at the federal level.

Neither Lowell nor William Wright of the New Orleans firm of Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles, to whom the letter was sent, returned calls for comment regarding the federal subpoenas. An official with the office of Jim Letten, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, said the office couldn’t confirm nor deny any investigation. The letter from Lowell does not make clear where the grand jury was convened. After learning ACORN was not going to comply – and hearing that two former ACORN employees had cleared their offices of everything, including computers – Caldwell’s office executed a search warrant Friday and seized more than 100 computers and other records from the activist group’s New Orleans headquarters.We were not in the mood to sit around and wait a whole long time,” said David Caldwell, the assistant attorney general over Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions and son of the attorney general. “Now we don’t have to worry about anything walking off…unless it’s already gone.”  As he spoke outside the ACORN headquarters at 2609 Canal St., investigators inside continued to load up scores of seized desktop and laptop computers, as well as other evidence. Caldwell said his office would copy the hard drives and return the computers to ACORN, perhaps within a week.  He said attorneys representing ACORN alerted him to the fact that two employees, whom he did not identify, removed computers from the offices. ACORN national officials recently fired longtime local ACORN leader Beth Butler, the common-law wife of ACORN founder Wade Rathke. Caldwell credited ACORN and its attorneys for calling the computer removals to his attention and said they acted in good faith. Still, the search warrant was necessary, Caldwell said, because “they can’t watch everybody.” 

Armed investigators in SUV’s arrived about 8 a.m. at the organization’s headquarters at 2609 Canal Street. By 2 p.m., they had loaded four vehicles with computer hardware. Caldwell spokeswoman Tammi Arrender said ACORN employees were polite and cooperative with officials, though they were irritated by the presence of reporters and news media cameras. 

The attorney general has been investigating the national activist groups since June on allegations of payroll tax fraud, covering up an embezzlement, and mismanaging a retirement fund, among other things. 

The attorney general has already served subpoenas on the former head of ACORN, Rathke, whose brother is alleged to have improperly charged at least $1 million to ACORN-related credit cards. Whitney Bank and the accountants have also been hit with subpoenas. 

Rathke and his brother, Dale, who worked on the financial side of the house, were ousted from their positions with the primary ACORN organization, though Wade Rathke continues to work with an international offshoot. 

Buddy Caldwell made headlines nationally recently when he said in court documents that Dale Rathke might have embezzled up to $5 million, though ACORN officials have disputed that amount. ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis has said that figure was cited as the amount needed to clean up the mess created by the Rathke brothers, not the amount taken and later repaid.

Read the original article Breitbart.com

ACORN Aims to Tip New Jersey Election in Corzine’s Favor

By: David A. Patten

Fearing a potentially devastating Democratic loss, the highly controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) group and its affiliated organizations are gearing up to tip the scales and re-elect the beleaguered incumbent in the hard-fought New Jersey gubernatorial race, sources tell Newsmax.

“ACORN is heavily involved in Gov. Jon Corzine’s get-out-the-vote operation, but is maintaining a low profile at the insistence of the Corzine campaign,” Matthew Vadum, senior editor of the conservative Capital Research Center think tank, tells Newsmax. “If Corzine manages to win reelection, he doesn’t want the victory tainted by his close association with ACORN.”

Wall Street Journal columnist and author John Fund wrote Tuesday that “Plenty of reasons exist for suspecting absentee fraud may play a significant role in tomorrow’s Garden State contests.”

ACORN-linked groups from neighboring Pennsylvania and New York “appear to have moved into the state,” Fund wrote.

Fund also reported that the state’s Democratic Party is pressuring county clerks around the Garden State to downplay signature checks on absentee ballots. Without such checking, it is very difficult to detect absentee vote fraud.

Although bruised and battered by the recent undercover videos depicting workers at various ACORN offices giving advice on tax evasion to a reputed child-prostitution ring, ACORN remains a potent political force in many regions. It has been the focus of voter-registration fraud investigations in more than a dozen states.

A search of the Acorn.org Web site shows that the organization has a heavy presence in New Jersey. It maintains offices in Jersey City, Trenton, Paterson, and Newark.

The group could play an important role in voter turnout, which many pundits predict will determine whether Corzine or his Republican challenger, Chris Christie, emerges victorious.

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Christie clinging to a narrow 42 percent to 40 percent lead over Corzine, with independent Christopher Daggett garnering 12 percent. Among those Daggett voters who say they may change their minds, Christie is preferred 39 percent to 29 percent.

Although those trends would appear to favor Christie, Republicans haven’t forgotten the prolonged Minnesota recount battle that ended with Democrat Al Franken being awarded the victory over GOP incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman. The bitter lesson drawn by many Republicans: Once officials in a heavily Democratic state declare a race close enough for a recount, all bets are off.

“If there is a recount,” Fund writes, “you can bet disputes about absentee ballots will loom large. Moreover, if serious allegations of fraud emerge, you can also expect less-than-vigorous investigation by the Obama Justice Department — which showed just how seriously it takes such allegations when it walked away from an open-and-shut voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia earlier this year.”

Absentee ballots become critical in every recount, and New Jersey officials are reporting a marked increase in requests for absentee ballots.

“There has been a reported surge in absentee balloting, which might be suspicious but isn’t necessarily proof of anything,” Vadum tells Newsmax.

Fund reports that state officials received “a flood” of more than 180,000 requests for absentee ballots.

“On some 3,000 forms the signature doesn’t match the one on file with county clerks,” Fund adds. “Yet citing concerns that voters would be disenfranchised, Democratic Party lawyer Paul Josephson wrote New Jersey’s secretary of state asking her ‘to instruct county clerks not to deny applications on the basis of signature comparison alone.’”

Voter-fraud allegations have marred several New Jersey elections in recent years, Fund reports.

In September, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram announced the indictments of Atlantic City Councilman Marty Small and 13 campaign workers, charging that they solicited absentee ballots on behalf of individuals not qualified to receive them, then opened the sealed ballots, and destroyed any that were not cast for Small.

In this election, supporters of Roberto Feliz, an Independent candidate for mayor of Camden, are sounding alarms over suspicious ballot activity, Fund reports. One Feliz backer says absentee ballots, which are thought to be more vulnerable to voter fraud, have increased by a factor of 15 compared with previous elections.

“In the 2005, when the city’s voters voted for both governor and mayor on the same day, only 200 absentee ballots were cast,” Fund writes. “This year, some 3,700 have already been received.”

Fund adds that the Feliz campaign has received complaints from voters regarding absentee irregularities.

Fund writes: “I spoke with Uremia Rojas who reports that ‘a man with a clipboard knocked on my door and had me sign something so I could vote by mail. I was skeptical but signed and got a ballot. I never really wanted one.’”

According to Fund, SEIU Local 32BJ, which is headquartered in Philadelphia but maintains an office in Newark, is “heavily involved” in the New Jersey gubernatorial election. The local’s political director, Peter Colavito, is a former political chief for ACORN, Fund says.

New York’s Working Families Party also has “moved into” New Jersey, he reports. The Working Families Party has very close ties to Acorn, an organization notorious for its labyrinthine network of affiliates.

In October, The New York Times reported that, before becoming White House political director, Patrick Gaspard “worked with ACORN in New York to set up the Working Families political party and sat on the party’s board,” along with ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis.

Fanning Republican fears is the fact that, despite New Jersey’s recent run-ins with vote-fraud allegations, Corzine signed a new “Vote by Mail” law in June that some believe may make it harder to detect fraudulent ballots.

That law allows voters to opt to receive mail-in ballots automatically for all state elections, which eliminates the need ever to show up at a polling place and submit identification.

“There are also new opportunities for voting shenanigans in New Jersey,” Vadum says. “Voting by mail is even easier now, thanks to the law Corzine signed.”

There was no immediate response from the Corzine campaign or ACORN Monday afternoon to a Newsmax request for comment regarding ACORN’s reported involvement in the election.

Read the original article at NewsMax.com

Will Corzine Allies Steal the Election in New Jersey? ACORN, Dirty Tricks and Absentee Ballot Fraud

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is locked in the political fight of his life. With just hours left before voting, polls show a neck-and-neck race between Corzine and GOP candidate Chris Christie, with Independent candidate Chris Daggett pulling significant support. Obama and VP Biden are making last ditch pitches for the embattled governor. But evidence is building that Corzine’s campaign may see its only salvation is in rigging the election.

The first sign is a straight-up dirty trick. Daggett’s run for office is certainly convenient for Corzine, as he will help split any anti-Corzine vote. And, as a Corzine political appointee, one wonders if his candidacy wasn’t a set up to begin with. Now, in the final days of the campaign, it appears state democrats are paying for robo calls supporting Independent Chris Daggett. First reported here, the robo calls attack Christie (but not Corzine) and promote Daggett. At the end of the call, it is mentioned that the calls are paid for by a “project of the NJSDC.” No idea what that acronym stands for, but New Jersey State Democratic Committee, isn’t too big of a stretch. More interesting is the fact that the return number on the calls is the same number that was used to promote Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s election in closing days of the 2006 race.

More telling that the fix is in, however, is the sudden appearance of ACORN on the scene. Not by name, mind you, as their reputation is so tarnished that even New Jersey Democrats don’t want to be associated with them. No, in New Jersey ACORN sought cover behind its big brother, SEIU, specifically SEIU Local 32BJ.

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Breaking News: Sarah Palin Supports ACORN Refunding

The only way the fringe “news” outlets would ever report on ACORN in an antagonistic manner would be if Sarah Palin somehow supported this creepy cabal.  After lending your name, Mrs. Palin, to ACORN for say, uh, 60 days or so, you could then say you were just BSing everyone to get the tools on the left to finally do the job these limp noodles are supposed to be doing: namely getting to the bottom of ACORN’s odious, braying deception.

This past Wednesday at the National Press Club, Andrew Breitbart, Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe once again released more ACORN footage that showed Bertha and her buddies to be lying through their taxpayer-funded, coffee-stained teeth. They shot holes in Berth’s bunkum. I’m talking .50 cal BMG holes.

Did you see it on TV, people? Short answer: no. Are you surprised? That would be “h” to the “no.”

If you did read about it via los loco lefty blogs, I gar-ron-tee they uniformly responded with the predictable “kill the messenger” schlock instead of their reporters saying, “Holy crap! ACORN looks like they lied their butts off to us once again. Maybe there’s somethin’ to these videos after all. Garsh.”

Hey, media wizards, if you really give a flibbertigibbet about the facts of the ACORN controversy, howzabout demanding ACORN cease and desist the specious fear tactic lawsuit slop and just roll the tapes, huh? Let’s hear the audio, numb nuts. What are you afraid of?

If ACORN is the lily white virgin daiquiris of innocence and virtue they purport to be then they should be all giddy about green-lighting Breitbart to push the Philly play button in order to show the world what their dudes truly counseled in the city of brotherly love.

I mean . . . why not? If you guys are above suspicion and the full Philadelphia audio illuminates that “fact,” then Giles, O’Keefe and Breitbart will be shown as the assassins you declare them to be, right? Until that day when you come clean you guys look really frickin’ guilty to those of us who still have a lick of common sense and decency.

Yep, until the media demands that ACORN play the Philly tapes and ACORN capitulates, we will never hear a discouraging word from these former news agencies. As stated, the only, only way we’re going to hear about ACORN sucking like we all know they do is if Palin supports them, Wade Rathke shoots a polar bear, or Bertha Lewis runs over a manatee while partying on her beer barge down at Key Biscayne.

See original article at TownHall.com

ACORN Layoffs are Taxpayer Rip-offs

by Michael McCray

Allegations of continuing corruption continue to mount against the embattled Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). In the wake of tremendous negative publicity, much of which was featured here at Big Government, and adverse House and Senate votes ACORN has begun laying off dozens of low-level workers and staff across the country.

However, under conditions of strict anonymity, ACORN organizers and staff have complained to the ACORN 8 (www.acorn8.com) that senior management has ordered them to continue to work for ACORN as “volunteers” but for them to apply for unemployment insurance.

In order to legally collect unemployment insurance compensation, the applicant must attest that they are ready, willing and able to work elsewhere to qualify for benefits. This is unemployment insurance fraud. And fraudulently applying for unemployment insurance compensation is a crime.

When these allegations were first brought to the attention of the ACORN 8, we initially thought no way. This is unbelievable, no one in their right mind would ever agree to do this. But we kept hearing these same allegations, over and over again, from different people in different parts of the country. And this is ACORN – these are the same of workers who registered Mickey Mouse to vote and offered tax advice to a pimp and prostitute.

Consequently, we fear that ACORN senior management has launched yet another scheme to exploit the gullibility of some low income workers and bilk American taxpayers out of thousands of dollars of government benefits.

But who controls the staff at ACORN? The national president (Maude Hurd)? The Executive Director (Steve Kest)? The answer is the Chief Organizer, or Bertha Lewis. Under ACORN by-laws the Chief Organizer (not the board of directors) is responsible for all of ACORN staff and employees. Lewis has control of the staff; but the board has to reign in Lewis (and others). (more…)

ACORN: Congress can't hurt us

By MICHAEL FALCONE

 Any successful efforts by Congress to cut off federal funding to scandal-plagued ACORN would have little effect on the community organizing group’s overall operations, its chief executive officer said on Tuesday.

 “We didn’t have government funding for years,” said ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis. “We may not have government funding in the future.”

 Lewis said ACORN typically receives about $2.5 million to $3 million annually from the federal government – roughly 10 percent of its $20 million to $25 million annual budget. Member dues and private sources make up a much larger chunk of the budget, she said.

 After a series of undercover videos surfaced showing ACORN employees giving advice to conservative activists posing as a prostitute and a pimp, opponents in Congress have sought to cut the group’s sources of federal money. In recent weeks, both the U.S. Census Bureau and the Internal Revenue Service have also ended partnerships with ACORN.

But Lewis, who spoke Tuesday at Washington’s National Press Club, called the congressional actions a case of “modern day ACORN McCarththyism,” and she dismissed a report by the Republican staff of the Senate Finance Committee alleging that ACORN used some charitable funding for political purposes.

 Last month, the group suspended new intakes to its service programs throughout the country, pending the results of an independent review led by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger.
Lewis, who said her remarks were part of a “set-the-record-straight tour,” said the group would continue to pursue a lawsuit against the makers of the videos as well as the conservative Web site, Breitbart.com, where they first appeared.
Read more of this article on Politico.com

ACORN's Lewis suggests opponents are racist

By Joseph Curl

ACORN’s Bertha Lewis charged Tuesday that accusations about the embattled community organizing group are racist, alleging that a coordinated political effort started by former Bush adviser Karl Rove sought to stop the group from registering minority voters.

“For many years, there’ve been folks who’ve disagreed with our ideology or methodology that has [cq] gone after us,” ACORN’s CEO said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington.

“I mean we, back going [cq] to 2004, we now see through e-mails from Karl Rove from the previous administration that ACORN itself was targeted, targeted to go after us so that we would stop doing voter registration because it was said that we were moving too many minorities to vote, changing the power dynamics on the local election and that we needed to be stopped.”

She also labeled as racist the infamous videos that show ACORN workers advising a man and young woman posing as pimp and prostitute how to circumvent the law. “These new filmmakers, [James] O’Keefe himself, told The Washington Post, ‘They’re registering too many minorities, they usually vote Democratic, somebody’s got to stop them,’ ” Mrs. Lewis said.

Washington Times

ACORN embezzlement was $5 million, La. attorney general says

By Robert Travis Scott

Louisiana’s attorney general has broadened the scope of an investigation of ACORN to include a possible embezzlement of $5 million a decade ago within the community organization, five times more than previously reported.

ACORN Chief Executive Officer Bertha Lewis said the new reported amount is “completely false.”

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has been conducting an investigation of ACORN since June. He issued subpoenas in August seeking documents related to former ACORN International President Wade Rathke and his brother Dale Rathke, who kept the group’s books. Those subpoenas were focused on possible ACORN violations for non-payment of employee withholding taxes, obstructing justice and violating the Employee Retirement Security Act. No charges have been made.

The attorney general had inquired in June into an alleged embezzlement within ACORN that happened 10 years ago. The group last year dealt with an internal dispute and a lawsuit involving accusations that Dale Rathke made nearly $1 million in improper credit card charges in 1999 and 2000. The brother and a donor repaid the money.

Caldwell said last month that the statute of limitations presented obstacles to prosecutors taking action on the embezzlement, and that his investigation was not focused on that issue. The subpoena issued Monday changed the tone of the investigation and put a new emphasis on the embezzlement issue.

“Current high-ranking members of ACORN have publicly acknowledged that embezzlement did in fact occur, but the exact amount of the embezzlement was unknown until it was recently acknowledged in a board of directors meeting on Oct. 17, 2008, by Bertha Lewis and Liz Wolf that an internal review had determined that the amount embezzled was $5 million, ” the new subpoena says.

Read more at NOLA.COM