A complaint filed July 7, 2010 indicates ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera (seen here in the ACORN San Diego investigation) is suing James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles in federal court for at least $75,000.  Vera alleges Giles and O’Keefe violated the Invasion of Privacy Act when they videotaped him giving advice regarding underage prostitution to the fake pimp and prostitute in 2009.

You can view the whole complaint here at Last Blog on Earth.

Vera worked at the National City ACORN branch, which was also the site of the document dump scandal (chronicled here) where ACORN employees discarded thousands of documents containing social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, immigration records, tax returns, etc. in a public dumpster ahead of Jerry Brown’s investigation of the community organizing group.

We’ll have more as this story develops.

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.

As I noted yesterday, thin-skinned Jamison Foser of Media Matters wrote Oct. 16  that “some conservative activists induced a statistically insignificant number of the organization’s low-level employees to behave badly.” [emphasis added]

Setting aside the question of whether the ACORN employees were “induced” by activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles to do things they wouldn’t have already been willing to do, was the number of ACORN personnel behaving badly statistically insignificant? Let’s take a look at that claim.

In statistics, a result is considered statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance.

So far ACORN employees in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New York City, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Philadelphia have been shown on video behaving badly. On all the videos, ACORN personnel have been cooperative and helpful to the make-believe pimp and prostitute.

So far ACORN personnel in six offices have acted badly. That’s six out of six, or 100%.

What are the chances of that happening?

This is –obviously– not statistically insignificant.

Actually, in statistics when a phenomenon keeps repeating itself over and over again and you’re batting 1000, it’s called a “trend.”

With the release of the Philadelphia video Wednesday, let’s add up the total number of ACORN employees behaving badly.

Unless I’m leaving somebody out:

Baltimore (2): Shera Williams and Tonja Thompson

Washington, D.C. (3): Sherona Boone, Lavernia Boone, unidentified woman

New York City (2): Volda Albert and Milagros Rivera

San Bernardino (1): Tresa Kaelke

San Diego (1): Juan Carlos Vera

Philadelphia (1): Katherine Conway Russell

That’s a total of 10 ACORN employees. Of the 10 ACORN employees videotaped, all 10 have acted badly. That’s 100% too.

What are the chances of that happening?

According to ACORN’s website, ACORN has 71 offices. I believe the total number is actually lower because several of the offices listed do not appear to be open for business.

But for sake of argument, let’s say it’s 71 offices. Expressed as a percentage, six out of 71 is 8.4%. That means that 8.4% of ACORN offices contain badly behaving employees. That’s a very good-sized statistical sample.

ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis told “Democracy Now!” Sept. 17 that ACORN has 700 employees.

Assuming Lewis is telling the truth (which is a very risky assumption to make given her proven mendacity) then 1.4% of ACORN’s workforce has been shown on video behaving badly.

Of course 1.4% is not as impressive a sample as 8.4% but it is certainly not small.

Desperate to defend his allies in ACORN, Foser of Media Matters can’t even think straight.

He’s asking people to believe that the 100% of the 10 ACORN employees (representing 1.4% of ACORN’s total workforce) shown in videos behaving badly is a statistically insignificant fluke.

Bear in mind if more videos are released showing ACORN employees behaving badly, the percentages are only going to grow.

Foser’s asking Americans to believe that the bad behavior of a statistically significant percentage of ACORN’s employees documented on video is purely coincidental. In other words, he’s arguing O’Keefe and Giles just happened to stumble upon the few rotten apples working at ACORN.

What are the chances of that happening?

Foser’s “rotten apples” spin happens to be the same lie that ACORN has been telling for years.

Is that a coincidence too, Media Matters?