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ACORN has been under fire repeatedly since last fall, accused of engineering election fraud, but the latest allegations, backed up by video, will convince even the most ardent ACORN supporters that something stinks in its Baltimore office.
Investigative journalist James O'Keefe from the Web site Big Government and a woman friend set up a video sting operation to see what advice the Baltimore ACORN office would dispense to a prostitute seeking to avoid taxes and hassles with the cops. They discussed how to create tax documentation that would satisfy requirements for a loan for a house to be used as a brothel with both the intake worker Shira and ACORN's tax adviser Tonja.
The purported prostitute Kenya told the ACORN Baltimore “tax expert” Tonja on the video that she makes $8,000 per month. Tonja replied, “…so we will put down that you made the $9,600 for the year.”
Tonja then searched the tax rules for a code to describe Kenya's line of work, prostitution. The ACORN representative told Kenya to describe her occupation as “performing artist.” Tonja, the tax expert from ACORN's Baltimore office, later reminded Kenya on video to refer to her business as performing arts, noting that if she referred to it as prostitution, “it is illegal, you are going to get shut down.”
Tonja at ACORN's Baltimore office similarly coached Kenya on how she could create the appearance of a business loss so she would not have to pay self-employment taxes. After Kenya's “boyfriend” mentions condoms as a business expense, Tonja suggests a write-off for clothing and grooming.
ACORN advised Kenya not to worry about the 13 underage, illegal workers she planned to hire from El Salvador.
“If they don't have Social Security numbers, you don't have to worry about them because they can't pay taxes anyway, ” she proclaimed. But she advises the reporting of three of the illegal aliens as relatives to enable Kenya to falsely claim child tax credit and additional child tax credit.
A tax return based on this illegal advice was scheduled to be prepared for the fee of $50, a discount off ACORN's usual $150 price.
ACORN's coaching fits an unfortunate pattern often used by scam artists. When I worked for the U.S. Department of Education, I litigated a case in which the State of New York had sent investigators into trade schools suspected of student financial aid fraud.
Just like in the Baltimore ACORN video, the trade school scam involved collusion among employees and friendly coaching aimed at procuring fraud.
The pattern starts out with suggestions about the consequences of reporting truthful information. In the Wilfred case, where the issue was independent student status, a school employee advised the applicant, “…when you say that you live with your parents, you don't get as much financial aid…”
When the applicant responds positively to the suggestion, the ante is upped with an actual suggestion to commit fraud. In the Wilfred case, the investigator later said “Yeah, just say it's a friend that lives there, not your parents.”
Scott Levenson called the ACORN video “false and defamatory and an attempt at 'gotcha' journalism.”
Levenson claimed, “This film crew tried to pull this sham at other offices and failed. ACORN wants to see the full video before commenting further.”
Like any sting operation, the ACORN video has a gotcha element, but the real problem for ACORN with this surreptitious video of its Baltimore office operation is now what didn't happen in elsewhere but what did happen in Baltimore.
Whether O'Keefe and Big Government tried to sting other ACORN offices and failed is a red herring because his Baltimore sting video, assuming its authenticity, appears to have turned up the goods on ACORN. The ACORN video doesn't prove anything with respect to the organization's activities nationwide, but it discloses all anyone needs to know about the Baltimore office.
Sources: http://www.watcherofweasels.org/acorn-caught-on-tape-the-new-shocking-acorn-video/; http://www.usmessageboard.com/current-events/87708-acorn-baltimore-flat-out-corruption-on-display-4.html; http://biggovernment.com/; In the Matter of 56 Postsecondary Educational Affiliates (Wilfred American Educational Corp. and/or Philip E. Jakeway, Jr.), U.S. Department of Education, Exhibit G-64.
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