Detective says ‘activity’ now deciding if others should be charged
Posted: June 30, 2009 1:57 pm Eastern
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the multi-level activist organization for which President Obama worked and which now is entangled in charges of voter fraud in multiple jurisdictions across the U.S., appears to be in the bull’s-eye of investigators.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a judge hearing a voter fraud case against an ACORN employee has suggested investigators pursue the conglomerate itself, obtaining a promise that it will be done.
The exchange came in the courtroom of Senior District Judge Richard Zoller. The Tribune-Review report today said the judge told Allegheny County Detective Robert F. Keenan, “Somebody has to go after ACORN. … It’s happening all over the country. All you have to do is turn on the television.”
The exchange came in the courtroom of Senior District Judge Richard Zoller. The Tribune-Review report today said the judge told Allegheny County Detective Robert F. Keenan, “Somebody has to go after ACORN. … It’s happening all over the country. All you have to do is turn on the television.”
Keenan responded, “We will.”
The local investigation into members of ACORN and their allegedly illegal voter registration actions last year remains “open and active,” a spokesman for District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. told the newspaper.
“There is quite a bit of activity aimed at determining if anyone else should be charged,” said Mike Manko.
The local case involves Eric E. Jordan, 20, who is the sixth person ordered to go to trial in Allegheny County on charges including soliciting a voter registration and interfering with county officials.
The prosecutor alleges ACORN workers are guilty of voter registration fraud and using quotas, a procedure barred by state law, the report said.
Jordan’s attorney agreed with the judge on some issues, including the issue of who is at fault, according to the Tribune-Review.
“ACORN should be charged, not my client,” attorney Olga Salvatori told the judge, explaining Jordan didn’t know it was illegal to set up a quota system.
Officials for ACORN have denied the organization required quotas for its voter registration drive workers. But they did admit to having “standards” employees must meet.
As WND reported earlier this month, a branch of ACORN, Project Vote, sued a whistleblower for $5 million.
ACORN became a hot-button issue in the 2008 presidential race because of Obama’s ties to the group as well as its own admission that more than 400,000 of the 1.3 million voter registrations it claims to have collected were not valid.
As WND reported, the whistleblower, Anita MonCrief, worked in the Strategic Writing and Research Department of ACORN Political Operations and its affiliate Project Vote from 2005 through January 2008.
While working with ACORN, however, MonCrief claims she discovered evidence of corruption, which led to her testimony against the organization in a Pennsylvania court last October. MonCrief also began a blog to expose the practices of ACORN and its affiliates.
She explained the reasons for her actions in her first blog post, just days before the 2008 election:
“Coming forward was not an easy choice, and I weighed my options repeatedly and realized that there was not much of a choice,” MonCrief wrote. “ACORN is a corrupt organization that is preying on the marginalized in this society, and they have become the cancerous growth of this election.”
Project Vote’s lawsuit, however, paints MonCrief as a disgruntled former employee seeking revenge:
The lawsuit details that MonCrief was fired for improperly attaining and using a Project Vote credit card, an infraction for which MonCrief has publicly apologized. The lawsuit also claims MonCrief and an unknown “John Doe” accomplice have obtained sensitive e-mails from the organization since her departure and published them on her blog. The suit seeks at least $5 million in damages for trademark infringement and dilution, conspiracy, theft of trade secrets and fraud.
Popular blogger and author Michelle Malkin, however, smells ulterior motives in the major lawsuit.
“You don’t have to be a lawyer to see that this is a blatant act of retaliation,” Malkin writes on her blog. “MonCrief has always been open and honest about her firing from Project Vote. The ObamACORN mob used the credit card incident as a pretext then, and they are using it as a pretext now. The real reason they are going after her is because she poses a fundamental threat to ACORN’s criminal racket.”
Entries (RSS)