Over a week ago, Attorney General Jerry Brown got yet another reminder, this time coming from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The report “Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and their Political Allies” focuses public attention on AG Brown’s failed investigation of ACORN. While some of Brown’s gubernatorial challengers talk of the need for a California Governor to have a spine of steel, AG Brown has instead crumpled like an aluminum can cowardly hiding behind state bureaucrats and a wall of state agencies.

On October 1, 2009, Jerry Brown publicly announced that an investigation had been opened concerning undercover videos that were obtained by citizen journalists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles who videotaped ACORN employees at two California offices. ACORN employees were filmed providing advice regarding tax evasion, prostitution and human smuggling of underage girls. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was informed by AG Brown in a letter that he had “opened an investigation of both ACORN and the circumstances under which ACORN employees were videotaped.” Since that announcement, AG Brown has found himself at the center of a controversy surrounding the mismanagement of the investigation as well as a potential scandal due to a double standard involving one of his own state employees secretly recording conversations with reporters.

Shortly after ACORN had been alerted to the immanent investigation as a result of AG Brown’s public announcement, ACORN employees at the San Diego, CA office were caught engaging in a massive document dump on October 9, 2009. Those records were retrieved from an unsecured shared public dumpster where they had been thrown revealing sensitive personal, financial and banking information for both clients and employees in addition to revelations about the political inner workings of ACORN’s relationship with major U.S. banks and labor unions.

Just a few days later, David Lagstein, ACORN’s head organizer in San Diego, was caught on an audio tape bragging how investigators from the Attorney General’s office had visited the local ACORN office that day and that communication from the Attorney General’s office indicates, “the fault WILL BE found with the people that did the video – not ACORN.” Mr. Lagstein appears to have been speaking with greater knowledge and authority than he has led people to believe since my investigation revealed that in addition to being ACORN’s head organizer, he is also married to Clare Crawford who is a National Political Director for ACORN and who has ties to ACORN’s head office in Chicago, IL.

First Clip: Attorney’s General Office Visits ACORN

Second Clip: Fault Will Be Found With Filmmakers

On November 22, 2009 while on KFI 640 radio with Andrew Breitbart, the story broke that I had over 20,000 documents ACORN unceremoniously threw into a dumpster in advance of Attorney General Jerry Brown’s visit to the local San Diego office. The following day, in a rambling statement on a Los Angeles radio show, AG Brown spoke about ACORN’s “right to privacy” of their trash. Californians quickly saw an Attorney General shift into political “duck and cover” mode rather than show the leadership that is expected from California’s top law enforcement official.

After being granted access to the documents, photographs and recordings that I obtained, investigators from the attorney general’s office stated in a written letter dated December 7, 2009, “California Teachers Association (CTA) paid California ACORN Special Projects nearly $140,000 in April-May, 2009 to conduct what CTA reported as “voter registration,” yet, according to documents found in the ACORN trash…it is apparent that ACORN workers solicited voter support for Proposition 1B.”

My investigation clearly showed that ACORN’s support of the ballot initiative was done with resources provided by the CTA and their explicit approval that specifically solicited partisan support from Democrat voters in California. Proposition 1B was a California ballot initiative during the May 19, 2009 special election that earmarked $9.3 billion for schools and was supported by CTA. The letter further states, “Because the issues raised by Mr. Roach’s claim seems most appropriately handled by the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), we are referring this matter to you.” The FPPC is a state agency consisting of two republicans and three democrats that investigate violations of California’s Political Reform Act. On December 30, 2009, Roman Porter Executive Director for the FPPC responded to the referral by the Attorney General’s office stating in a written letter, “There is no evidence of a Political Reform Act violation.”

ACORN – FPPC Ltr 12-30-09 –

In the wake of Jerry Brown alerting ACORN to an investigation that was to be conducted by his office, ACORN’s actions of dumping records into a dumpster in what appeared to be possible obstruction of justice, statements from ACORN officials that some interpret as possible collusion between ACORN and the Attorney General’s office and a referral of an investigation to another state agency in what appears to be an abdication of responsibility and the equivalent of a political passing-of-the-buck now comes new allegations that ACORN did in fact violate multiple California state and federal laws.

On February 19, 2010 Congressman Darrell Issa (CA-49) stated on nationally syndicated The Roger Hedgecock Show that documents from the San Diego office of ACORN were vital in showing a pattern of fraud, waste and abuse. The documents also showed that ACORN and the California Teachers Association were directly involved in California elections without the proper firewalls that are legally required to distinguish non-profit from political activities.

Congressman Issa also referred to the recent report “Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and their Political Allies” which was released by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on February 18, 2009. The report finds, “There is no distinction between ACORN and any of its affiliates. Affiliates share staff, funds, office space, responsibilities, and common controls-there is no real separation between the parts, making it impossible to consider them as truly separate organizations.”

Documents obtained from the San Diego ACORN office included information about Citizens’ Consulting Inc which the report found is “an arm of ACORN that commingles funds from ACORN’s non-profit organizations and transfers this money to organizations to use for political purposes.” Documents that I provided to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also showed a relationship, not only with the California Teachers Association but with the local chapter of Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The findings in the congressional report found that, “SEIU and ACORN are not only financially but also politically codependent” and that “ACORN directly runs two of the most prominent SEIU locals.” ACORN and SEIU were also found to share offices in nine cities across the United States utilizing staff and resources to advance both organizing and political goals.

Documents obtained from the San Diego ACORN office included financial records for Whitney Bank located in New Orleans, Louisiana. The congressional report that was released found that ACORN maintained nearly 700 bank accounts at Whitney Bank alone not to mention numerous bank accounts at other banks including Bank of America. It was revealed that ACORN had ownership interest in Whitney Bank. The report findings shockingly revealed that Whitney Bank inexplicably wired several million dollars to an ACORN Bank of America account in San Francisco and that money has not been accounted for.

It is astoundingly amazing that with video evidence obtained by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, documents that show an undisputed pattern of political activism by a “non-profit” organization, millions of dollars that have been unaccounted for and a congressional investigation that has documented a pattern of criminal activity that has deprived the State of California from desperately needed tax revenues; that California Attorney General Jerry Brown has yet to show any real sign of leadership or fortitude necessary to protect the citizens of California or seriously investigate ACORN.

Instead he is hiding behind a state bureaucracy hoping that nobody will notice his lack of leadership until after the next election. It is no wonder that Democrat elite are quietly whispering in their inner circles that Attorney General Jerry Brown failed California as Governor and is once again failing to show any signs other than that of a washed up politician who is once again trying to become Governor before heading of to retirement to enjoy his family’s trust fund. Perhaps it is time to investigate those in Sacramento for their ties to this corrupt organization.

The documents were thrown out in advance of state investigators arriving at the local ACORN office to conduct an investigation resulting from national media attention.  ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera was videotaped giving advice to two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute regarding underage prostitution and human smuggling.  Without admitting any wrongdoing ACORN terminated Mr. Vera, or so they said.  Documents provided to BigGovernment.com show that Mr. Vera was not terminated but was simply laid off, implying that Mr. Vera is also eligible for rehire. (The document also notes that Mr. Vera was laid off due to “restructuring” related to “videotaping incident.)

Other documents provided to BigGovernment.com show that in the wake of the national scandal involving underage prostitution and human smuggling, ACORN employees were communicating with media, law enforcement and internally among ACORN offices as to how to develop a storyline that could explain the undercover videos taken of Mr. Vera.  One of those documents with San Diego television station 10News is shown below:

As a result of the undercover videos surfacing and the national media attention that followed, internal documents that were thrown in the trash and recovered by Derrick Roach reveal that ACORN was well aware that personal information for individuals who have applied for services and individuals on so-called “yes lists” needed to be secured under lock and key.

Ironically, the only part of this tumultuous episode that may in fact be a joke is that California Attorney General Jerry Brown is running for governor, again.  At age 71, California’s top cop and erstwhile Gov. Moonbeam might benefit from a refresher course in current law.  Attorney General Brown cited a case from the 1960’s where items placed in the garbage were considered private; however, in 1988 the United States Supreme Court ruled in a case, California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988), that there was no expectation of privacy when items are thrown in the garbage since it is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public.  As for the local National City ordinance prohibiting scavenging through garbage that the ACORN office and its supporters cite, that law was enacted in 1984 and was nullified by the United States Supreme Court ruling just four years later.

According to señor Roach via BigGovernment.com, after the release of the San Diego ACORN sting videos—which my daughter Hannah, James O’Keefe, and Andrew Breitbart dropped on the Nation’s head—and following Governor Schwarzenegger’s call for a probe into this batty zoo, Roach took it upon himself to get busy and see if he could ferret out more funky filth from this nefarious gang.

And, as stated, Roach scored more than Dwayne Wade would playing hoops against blind five-year-old, one-legged narcoleptic midgets.

What did Papa Roach come across?  Well, my children, it was stuff like …

• Information exposing the inner workings of ACORN in California.
• Sensitive personal information belonging to employees, members and ACORN clients, such as social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, immigration records, and tax returns.
• ACORN’s political agenda is also laid bare, with thousands upon thousands of documents revealing the depth of the political machine that is ACORN and its disturbing ties not only to public employee labor unions but some of the most radical leftist organizations in existence (I wonder which politicians we will discover are in cahoots with these goofy clowns?).

The timing of this 20k plus page paper plunk of sensitive and incriminating 411 is kinda interesting as well.  Check it out:

• On October 1, 2009 California Attorney General Jerry announced that he was going to do a little look-see inside ACORN’s hull to determine if their San Diego office was as innocent as Bertha Lewis, David Lagstein and the Mange Stream Media screamed them to be.
• “Coincidently,” just a few days prior to when AG Brown was slated to pay them a howdy-doo, low and behold, on October 9, ACORN San Diego decided to do a bit of midnight spring cleaning and dump all their docs in a public dumpster to spruce up the joint before the AG’s arrival.
• Unfortunately for poor ACORN, PI Derrick Roach was parked outside waiting for them to do something stupid like dump 20,000 plus pages of their corporate papyrus and their clients’ personal records in a trash bin behind their slim shady facilities.

By the way, are there laws governing how personal info like social security numbers, tax returns, driver’s license numbers and stuff like that should be handled?  I’m thinking there would be.  Hmmm, I don’t know.  Maybe Media Matters will look into it; if there are laws demanding stringent care and disposal of sensitive info, it looks like ACORN, prima facia, could be in deep crap with a stack of folks for placing their private stories in a public dumpster.

I would now like to address you, Mr. Roach.  Good job, old chap! As Hannah Giles’ father and one who has been on the receiving end of the ACORN/Mange Stream Media stick, please take my advice and brace for the vilifying crunch from these numb nuts.

They’re are going to hit you with retarded stuff like …

• How dare a conservative PI jump into a dumpster and steal trash?!  It’s unethical.
• You’re not a legitimate trash man.  You’ve never been to trash man school.
• The trash did not give its consent to be removed from the dumpster.  California law requires garbage to give its go-ahead before it is embraced by another.
• FOX News paid you 100 kadrillion dollar$ to dumpster dive.
• You tried this at thousands of other ACORN dumpsters and came up snake eyes.
• No other ACORN office would ever dispose of their clients’ records like this, except, of course, for that Oklahoma ACORN branch that left all their computers and crap on the curb after they got kicked out of their building for not paying the bills.

ACORN, naturally, is going into full damsel in distress mode, stating it was an accident and a coincidence that it occurred right before Brown and his boys were to perform their investigative colonoscopy into ACORN’s corrupt underbelly.

ACORN also blathered that Roach stole their trash.  Stole your trash?  Hey ACORN, once you place your clients’ sensitive info and your political playbook into le garbage it is public domain.  Every hooker running a whorehouse with underage sex slaves knows that.

Lastly, will the little darlings on the left report this?  Will Eric Holder call for a brutal investigation into the ACORNucopia of corruption of which BigGov and some citizen soldiers have uncovered?  Garsh … who knows!  I guess we poor little serf’s of Obamaland will just have to wait and see.

While chiefly focused on banks and financial institutions, GLB also covers groups like ACORN who are “non-bank mortgage lenders, loan brokers, some financial or investment advisers, tax preparers, providers of real estate settlement services, and debt collectors.”

We know ACORN provide tax preparation and other financial counseling. We leave to others whether or not ACORN falls under the letter of GLB. They certainly fall under the spirit of what legislators were trying to achieve. At the very least, the were trying to prevent credit reports, for example, from being thrown away in a public dumpster:

ACORN – Credit Report _Redacted_ -

Penalties for violating GLB are severe. In addition to possible criminal penalties, including jail time, organizations and institutions can be fined $100,00o for each infraction.

Keep in mind, there were many, many documents similar to the one above dumped in the trash. While we have redacted sensitive personal information, ACORN had not. Add up the hundreds and even thousands of such documents at a penalty of $100,000 each and ACORN ought to be facing very stiff fines. That is, if anyone bothers to investigate.

But, one shouldn’t take this to mean that ACORN is always and everywhere incompetent. You don’t build an international organization with offices in hundreds of US cities through incompetence. Part of ACORN’s secret is that it is really shrewd politically. Below is a plan for a 2-year ACORN campaign to repeal California’s Prop 13. That initiative, passed in 1979, restricts government’s power to increase taxes. One of its toughest provisions requires a 2/3rds vote of the legislature to raise taxes. ACORN, naturally, wants to scrap that.

ACORN – CA Budget Campaign -

This is impressive. ACORN is already mapping out a plan for the 2012 election cycle.

They are also honest about their present situation and the challenges it presents. Below is a memo detailing the possibility that ACORN may need to reconstitute under a different name in California.

ACORN – Memo _Name Change_ -

ACORN wants you to believe that the documents they dumped last month are old fliers, leaflets and other out-dated garbage. They aren’t. The documents above are current working documents. And, ACORN made a point of dumping them.

Stay tuned…

Below is a monthly credit card statement for ACORN employee David Lagstein’s corporate credit card:

ACORN – Credit Card _Redacted_ –

We’re not entirely certain what the “Fertility Specialist Medical Group” or the “San Diego Reproductive Surgery Center” does, but we know that, in June, ACORN paid them more than $9,000. We also know that ACORN dumped the credit card statement detailing the charge into a public dumpster just days before the Attorney’s General office was scheduled to visit.

No doubt, Mr. Lagstein has a good reason for this purchase. Or, at least, an explanation for how payments to a fertility clinic further the hopes and dreams of the poor and low-income families who have turned to ACORN for help. We’ll be waiting along with the rest of you for the answer.

Really?

Below is one family’s application for food stamp benefits that ACORN threw out with its trash, in advance of a visit from officers of the Attorney’s General office.

ACORN – Food Stamp _Redacted_ –

The food stamp application has a “wet” signature, meaning it is the original application. It isn’t a copy. Did ACORN forward this application to the proper federal or state agencies. Is this family, with multiple children, still waiting to hear whether they qualify for food stamp benefits? Are they watching the approaching Thanksgiving holiday wondering whether they will have food to eat?

ACORN spokesman, Amy Schur said, in response to news reports about the document dump that, “it appears that included in the piles of garbage being thrown out may have been some documents containing private information.”

Yes, Ms. Schur, your organization’s reckless handling of “private information” is troublesome. The precise ratio of “garbage” to “private information” is kind of missing the point about the trust that’s been placed with ACORN. This isn’t the only application for food stamp assistance we’ve recovered. This is just one example. There are many, many applications for food stamps discarded by ACORN.

This is a betrayal of the trust of a family that came to you for help. Their application for food stamp assistance was a plea for help. ACORN took this, and many others like it, and threw it out with their trash.