By: Navid Kanani
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is under yet another charge for embezzlement by many state attorney generals this week. It seems as though the leftist group is faced with another controversy amidst its association.
The organization has been the subject of numerous controversies, including perhaps its most well-known misconduct during last year’s presidential campaign after GOP allegations of falsifying voter registration applicants. Some of its voter registration workers were prosecuted, and some other employees resigned.
ACORN is a collection of community-based organizations in the United States that advocate for low- to moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. Best known for its efforts to register poor and minority citizens to vote, ACORN has over 400,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters across the U.S.
The charges of embezzlement stem from an undercover video showing ACORN employees Shera Williams and Tonja Thompson providing advice to two filmmakers posing as a pimp and prostitute on how to skirt tax laws. The footage — captured in ACORN offices in Baltimore, New York, the Greater Los Angeles area, Washington, D.C. and San Diego — led to the dismissal of four employees, but more importantly it has prompted the IRS and the Census Bureau to sever almost all ties to the organization while Congress voted to cut federal funding (83-7 for cuts in the Senate, and 345-75 for cuts in the House.) Officials estimate the amount embezzled to be around $5 million. This is a huge case for any criminal defense attorney or embezzlement lawyer to handle, and it would be wise to have a criminal defense team of professionals on the defensive side to help in any way.
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets, usually financial in nature, by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted. It is a kind of financial fraud where the defendant and aggrieved party share a fiduciary relationship and the defendant fraudulently misappropriates the property.
ACORN has fired back with its own set of lawsuits. Defendants include conservative activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles who posed as a pimp and prostitute, as well as Breitbart.com and possibly Fox News for distributing the video.
Questions remain regarding how these embezzlement charges will affect the more than 400,000 ACORN members. On September 16, 2009, ACORN suspended advising new clients and began an internal review process, headed by Scott Harshbarger, due to “the indefensible action of a handful of [ACORN] employees.”
For more information, go to: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/06/acorn.press.club/index.html
