Acorn Offices in New Orleans Are Raided

[Topper Harley]

 


November 7, 2009
Acorn Offices in New Orleans Are Raided
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — State investigators raided Acorn’s offices here on Friday, taking hard drives and documents in an investigation into accusations of embezzlement and tax fraud when the group’s national headquarters was in New Orleans.

“This is an investigation of everything — Acorn, the national organization, the local organization and all of its affiliated entities,” said David Caldwell, an assistant attorney general.

A lawyer for Acorn said in a statement that the raid was prompted by accusations that former Acorn employees had removed or altered electronic documents and might do so in the future.

The lawyer, Pamela Marple, said investigators wanted “virtually every document in the possession of Acorn and any related entity.”

The raid was the latest in a string of troubles for Acorn. Videotapes released recently showed two people posing as a pimp and a prostitute seeking advice on tax evasion at Acorn offices. The responses given by the Acorn workers in the tapes led Congress and state governments to cut financing for the organization.

State prosecutors said their investigation into the New Orleans offices stemmed from accusations involving embezzlement at Acorn nearly a decade ago that were made last year by board members.

Last year, Acorn settled an internal dispute and a lawsuit involving accusations that Dale Rathke, the brother of the group’s founder, Wade Rathke, made about $948,000 in improper credit card charges in 1999 and 2000. The Rathke family and a donor repaid the money, and no criminal charges were ever filed.

                                       

Last month, Louisiana’s attorney general, James D. Caldwell, the father of David Caldwell, said he would investigate accusations that the embezzlement might have been as high as $5 million.

For 33 years, Acorn’s national headquarters was in New Orleans after Wade Rathke moved there in the 1970s from Little Rock, Ark., where he started the organization. The embezzlement scandal led the organization to move its headquarters to Washington this year, allowing the national organization to distance itself from the Rathkes.

[Topper Harley]

New Orleans ACORN office goes up for sale $835,000! It was an old Funeral Home which seems appropriate seeing the scummy illegal activity going on there.

                                                              

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/files/2009/10/acorn-NO.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/876&usg=__XAf3h3H1mTdjJL24C4s7992pVE0=&h=247&w=380&sz=87&hl=en&start=25&um=1&tbnid=ccjuAqO-T0dyMM:&tbnh=80&tbnw=123&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dacorn%2Boffice%2Bnew%2Borleans%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7ADBS_en%26sa%3DN%26start%3D18%26um%3D1

[Dingus Magee]

Not to worry. The new regime will pay ACORN about a hundred times what the property is worth and let Planned Parenthood open an office there. They will be able to fully utilize the properties unique features and turn a profit at the same time!

[Poorman]

  Planned Parenthood's activities  would be more at home in a former slaughter house than a funeral home

[Dingus Magee]

True, Poorman, but in light of new rules on the way about disposing of ashes of the deceased, PP wil start to make thousands instead of throwing the dead children into a dumpster and paying $40 a week to dispose of them. After all they will be doing the governments work and the government should pay the rate. Call it a stimulus or something to keep the butchers working. They've already shipped part of the Berlin Wall here and next they'll restore the Buchenwald ovens for people that oppose them.

[Topper Harley]

Obama’s Campaign Lies About ACORN
By Larry Johnson

                                             

We broke the story about the Obama Campaign’s mysterious payment of more than $800,000 to Citizen Services Inc. The payments ostensibly were for “STAGING, SOUND, and LIGHTING.” A reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune, David Brown, agreed to look into the matter and was told by the Obama campaign:

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat’s campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.

An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. — a subsidiary of ACORN — worked in “get-out-the-vote” projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.

But that is a lie. Citizen Services passed the money to ACORN. I know this because the head of Citizen Services told me so. As I reported previously:
Thanks to the internet I finally tracked him down in Minnesota and gave him a call. Mr. Alabi answered the phone and I introduced myself using my real name. But I did tell a white lie–I said I got his name and number from Bob Shrum at the Democratic National Committee. He hesitated. When I repeated that I got his name and number from the DNC he brightened up and became quite chatty. Using the Obama FEC filing as my guide I told Mr. Alabi that I needed to hire Citizen Services to help my campaign with “Staging, Sound, and Lighting.” Without a moments hesitation Mr. Alabi told me, “we don’t do that.” He went on to identify ACORN as the organization that handles those matters and he told me to contact Marc Seiden (he gave me a cell phone number for Mr. Seiden, which is a District of Columbia cell phone).

He made it clear in the conversation that they did not do the work for the Obama campaign, but that the work was done by ACORN. It is incumbent on the FEC to audit this money and see where it went. Why? We are not dealing with just “one” organization. ACORN has erected an elaborate web of front organizations that allow it to hide its influence and reach. I did a quick search of the internet using the New Orleans address of ACORN. Guess what I found? Almost three hundred organizations connected to ACORN. Well, I would like you to look at the following list of ACORN related organizations that share the same address as ACORN. TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY FOUR names. Got that?

This is a tangled web that defies the ability of any one person or organization to figure out who is working for whom. Carnival workers use three cups on a table to trick the public into guessing where they hid the pea. Here ACORN has 290 plus “cups” to use to hide their financial and organizational shenanigans.

Here are the names. The beauty of the internet is that enterprising lone investigators can go to work without having to organize a full blown government investigation.

                                         

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/10/14/obamas-campaign-lies-about-acorn/

Check out this list of over 290 organizations that use this Funeral Home as their address! Unfriggin believable!!! Where are the media "watchdogs"

[Topper Harley]

California AG talking to ACORN going after those that exposed the corruption???   

                                                  <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZEyKcXtjBQE&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/ZEyKcXtjBQE&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs</a>