Posts Tagged ‘Charles Turner’

Matthew Vadum

ACORN’s Federal Lobbying Shenanigans

by Matthew Vadum

ACORN is no stranger to shady lobbying practices.

Months before GOP  investigators on the House Oversight and Government Committee revealed that ACORN appears to be lobbying illegally in Delaware, a former ACORN employee alleged ACORN violated federal lobbying laws.

The ex-ACORN employee, Ron Sykes, said that Citizens Consulting Inc. (CCI), the shadowy financial nerve center of the ACORN network, filed false lobbying disclosure reports with Congress.

lobbying

This is important because, as former ACORN national board member Charles Turner said earlier this year on “The Glenn Beck Program,” CCI “is where the shell game begins.”

“ACORN has over 200 different entities that the money gets moved around to – for this purpose to that purpose, this organization to that organization,” said Turner. “We believe the way the money has been moved around, they’ve been laundering money.”

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Posted Dec 14th 2009 at 6:17 am in ACORN, Congress, News, Obama, Politics | 21 Comments

Matthew Vadum

ACORN’S Enron-Style Accounting: Playing Musical Chairs with Big Money

by Matthew Vadum

The activities of the radical, corrupt to the core, left-wing Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has tangled itself up in an infinitely complex web of deceit, thuggery, and questionable financial dealings, are long overdue for a RICO probe.

Recent well-publicized events that I need not recount here show ACORN’s criminal propensities. In a moment I’ll explain how ACORN’s financial affairs ought to raise a red flag for investigators at the U.S. Department of Justice, but first some background.

ACORN_ENRON

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which was created to prosecute organized crime, allows the federal government to go after individuals who commit any two RICO-related crimes over a decade. The law allows courts to convict persons if it can be shown that they committed those crimes as part of an illegal enterprise and can order disgorgement of their ill-gotten gains from the enterprise.

RICO is the right tool for the job.

Perhaps it’s the only tool for the job because the ACORN network is deliberately structured to deter scrutiny. Its nebulous legal status and opaque corporate structure allow it to keep its activities largely hidden from public view.

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Posted Sep 25th 2009 at 7:10 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Obama | 31 Comments

Matthew Vadum

ACORN’s Lobbying Shenanigans

by Matthew Vadum

Citizens Consulting Inc. (CCI), the shadowy financial nerve center of the embattled radical activist group ACORN, has filed false lobbying disclosure reports with Congress, according to Ron Sykes, a former ACORN employee.

This revelation is important because, as former ACORN national board member Charles Turner said earlier this year on “The Glenn Beck Program,” CCI “is where the shell game begins.”

“ACORN has over 200 different entities that the money gets moved around to – for this purpose to that purpose, this organization to that organization,” said Turner. “We believe the way the money has been moved around, they’ve been laundering money.”

wade-in-peru-1

ACORN founder Wade Rathke (left) and ACORN enabler Drummond Pike (right) of Tides Foundation in an undated photo taken in Peru. On the wall is a large poster of Communist icons Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.

When former ACORN activist Ron Sykes was informed by this reporter that ACORN affiliate CCI registered him as a lobbyist, he was angry. “It’s like identity theft,” said Sykes in an interview. “I have no idea why they registered me. I didn’t register myself and was not aware that they were doing it.”

Whether this reflects ACORN’s institutional carelessness or a calculated effort to deceive, the discovery throws some light on how ACORN treats its employees, moves money around the ACORN network, and deals with the federal government. Federal lawmakers have known for years about ACORN’s unorthodox and possibly illegal practices, including its use of government resources to promote legislation and its extensive commingling of funds within its network of affiliates.

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Posted Sep 23rd 2009 at 1:15 pm in ACORN | 52 Comments