Computers, records seized at ACORN offices

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Associated Press - November 6, 2009 2:24 PM ET

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - State investigators are searching the New Orleans offices of the activist group ACORN in connection with embezzlement and tax fraud allegations.

Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell said a warrant was obtained to seize computers, hard drives and other documents after ACORN attorneys said two unidentified former employees took computers and other items when they left the organization.

Caldwell said investigators will copy records and hard drives, then return them to ACORN.

He said the original allegations of embezzlement were made last year by ACORN board members who were fired after they asked for a forensic examination of the group's books.

ACORN fired the longtime director of its Louisiana chapter last month, citing a lack of accountability.

http://www.wdam.com/Global/story.asp?S=11458670

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

(more)

By Martha Carr, The Times-Picayune

November 06, 2009, 1:00PM

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has served a search warrant at the ACORN office at 2609 Canal Street, according to Tammi Arender Herring, a spokeswoman with the office.

Investigators in khaki pants and polo shirts loaded several dozen computers and other electronic items into an SUV. They are also carrying records out of the building on handcarts.

The large office building sits at the corner of Dorgenois and Canal. ACORN staffers were given no notice that a search would be conducted today, Herring said.

"They have been extremely cooperative," she said.

Early last month, Caldwell's office issued subpoenas for records from ACORN's New Orleans office, where the organization -- now moving its national headquarters to Washington -- has long been based.

Today's search is an outgrowth of those subpoenas, which stemmed from an investigation by Caldwell's office into the embezellement of ACORN funds by Dale Rathke, a brother of the organization's founder, Wade Rathke, Herring said.

An ACORN official, speaking on background, said he believed the raid was ordered because of reports that workers for the organization loyal to Beth Butler, the recently fired head of ACORN's Louisiana branch, had been taking computer data and other items out of the office.

The official said that ACORN had been "intending to notify" the attorney general's office about those reports, but had not done so yet. The official said that he understands that Caldwell's investigators will copy the hard drives from ACORN's computers and return them next week. The computers contain all payroll information for the national organization, which was based in New Orleans until recently, the official said.

People inside and close to ACORN were angered by news last spring that Dale Rathke had taken close to $1 million from the organization, which is billed as an advocate for poor and working-class people.

But in the subpoenas, the state attorney general's office suggested that the embezzlement may have been on the order of $5 million, and that ACORN's current CEO, Bertha Lewis, acknowledged as much at an Oct. 17, 2008 board meeting, soon after she assumed the position.

But Lewis, reacting to the subpoenas, said that Caldwell apparently bought a misleading version of events that she said was being peddled by two dissident former board members for ACORN.

While it has drawn controversy for years because of its adocacy and voter registration work, ACORN recently faced a firestorm of criticism after two posing as a prostitute and pimp obtained advice from ACORN staffers in several cities on how to set up their operations.

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2009/1...ves_search.html

Edited November 6, 2009 by Lone Ranger

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Interesting.

[Pooky 3,784]

Early last month, Caldwell's office issued subpoenas for records from ACORN's New Orleans office, where the organization -- now moving its national headquarters to Washington -- has long been based.

Regardless of who is involved here, does anyone else think the AG and his team are just a little on the daft side for giving the target of the subpoenas almost a month's notice that this was coming down the pike? I mean, if there is anything incriminating left on any of these computers, then the guilty parties have only themselves to blame for looking even dumber than the AG.