NY Prosecutor Clears ACORN Workers in Pimp and Hooker Incident
Prosecutors in New York on Monday found no criminal wrongdoing in the investigation of employees of the liberal grass-roots group ACORN who were caught on video giving tax advice to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute.
In a statement, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said that after a five-month investigation, there would be no prosecution.
ACORN has been reeling since the video made it onto YouTube last September, Reuters reports. The employees were fired and the N.Y. chapter severed ties with the larger group. Also, Congress voted to prohibit federal funding for the group and the U.S. Census Bureau ended its partnership with ACORN.
The New York Daily News quotes a law enforcement source who says that while the video by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles seemed to show three ACORN workers advising a prostitute how to hide illicit money, an unedited version wasn’t as clear-cut.
“They edited the tape to meet their agenda,” the Daily News quotes the source saying.
ACORN lawyer Arthur Schwartz told the Daily News that the organization is “gratified that the DA has concluded something we knew all along.”
Schwartz said it was unfortunate that O’Keefe and Giles used “subterfuge to convince Congress and the media to vilify an organization that didn’t deserve it.”
