Bad News For James O'Keefe

Bad News For James O'Keefe
James O'Keefe Lawsuit: Ex-ACORN Employee Can Sue Over Activist's Sting Video, Federal Judge Says

Conservative activist James O'Keefe and his associate Hanna Giles will face a lawsuit from a former ACORN employee featured prominently in their 2009 undercover sting video, after a federal judge refused to throw out the case.

According to Courthouse News, U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz decided last week that a breach of privacy claim from Juan Carlos Vera, a one-time employee of ACORN's office in National City, Calif., had merit.

ACORN is a now-defunct housing and community advocacy group targeted by O'Keefe in a highly publicized and heavily edited 2009 sting video. The fallout from O'Keefe's operation eventually prompted Congress to strip the organization of federal funding, eventually leading to its bankruptcy.

Vera sued O'Keefe and Giles in 2010, claiming that they had violated California privacy laws in their filming of the high-profile video, which was featured prominently on cable news and right-wing blogs. In the hidden-camera video, O'Keefe and Giles come to Vera seeking advice on setting up a prostitution ring involving underage sex workers from Mexico. Vera has maintained that O'Keefe vowed to keep the meeting confidential, a claim that O'Keefe has denied. Vera eventually obliged their request, though it's not entirely clear why. He reportedly claimed to have gone "along with the conversation in hopes of getting information from the couple that he could provide to law enforcement in the event they were telling the truth." He later contacted authorities about the unusual visit, but was fired in the aftermath of the selectively edited video's release.

In his ruling, Lorenz found a "genuine dispute as to whether [Vera's] expectation of privacy was reasonable," Courthouse News notes, which he used as grounds to deny O'Keefe's motion to have the suit dismissed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/1 ... 82949.html

Dang... Wheeee! Best news I've had today... How wonderful it will be to see the little sleazebag end up bankrupted, and possibly busted for his slimy selective-editing fauxnews.

So OKeefe exposed a scumbag and a band of cockroaches who are now all out of work. What's the problem again? rofllol
I'm sure he'll be serving some hard time for this one! Looking forward to him setting up a defense fund so I can send a check asap. Well done James!

The only way that happens is if the entire jury is populated by wingnuts like yourself. Reasonable people are going to laugh at the very thought of someone who is willing to engage in a criminal conspiracy has an expectation of privacy. That would mean that every undercover operation conducted by law enforcement would get tossed out of court because the criminals had an expectation of privacy when dealing with the undercover LEO.

PrintSmith wrote: The only way that happens is if the entire jury is populated by wingnuts like yourself. Reasonable people are going to laugh at the very thought of someone who is willing to engage in a criminal conspiracy has an expectation of privacy. That would mean that every undercover operation conducted by law enforcement would get tossed out of court because the criminals had an expectation of privacy when dealing with the undercover LEO.

Wow, your truthiness is taking a beating today. Juan Carlos Vera was never convicted or even charged with a criminal conspiracy. Because do you know what he actually did? As soon as O'keefe left his office that day, he called the police to report a crime that O'Keefe was planning. He also reported it to his co workers and his boss. He did everything right except not immediately kicking O'Keefe out of his office. But he thought he was doing his civic duty in helping LEO catch a pimp and under age sex trafficker. O'Keefe then doctored his video to make Vera look bad and Breitbart went ahead and published it and refused to issue a retraction. The California Attorney General investigated and found Vera absolutely innocent. That is what the lawsuit is about.

http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/press/ ... report.pdf

It is too bad that the right wing has to smear lies about innocent individuals to ruin their lives and livelihood.

Wow... too bad the only "criminal conspiracy" was O'Keefe's....

Your logic is along the lines of a citizen thinking that they won't get in arrested for possession of narcotics if they bought them from the local drug dealer and then turned the evidence over to the police when they showed up at the local headquarters to report the crime.

PrintSmith wrote: Your logic is along the lines of a citizen thinking that they won't get in arrested for possession of narcotics if they bought them from the local drug dealer and then turned the evidence over to the police when they showed up at the local headquarters to report the crime.

No, in this instance, Mr. Vera did not engage in any criminal enterprise, i.e., he did not buy any drugs, he merely listed to O'Keefe engage in a discussion about a criminal act, then he reported that conversation. As the California AG found, Mr. Vera committed no crime.

FYI, you can discuss criminal acts, a conspiracy does not begin until you actually engage in an act beyond mere discussion. Mr. Vera did not engage in any act of pimping or trafficking, he reported the discussion to the law enforcement for them to act upon it.

Why do you continue to try to smear an innocent man with lies?

An undercover operation by law enforcement personal is completely different from a private organization and the protections are not the same.

Did O'Keefe contact the law after he made his film, or did he just put it out on the internet to smear ACORN?