Writes Clarice Feldman, “evidence shows ACORN has committed the predicate crimes that would allow the government to prosecute them under the racketeering statute”:
There was a rumor circulating last week that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago was heading up a team looking into RICO prosecutions of ACORN, but it appears to have been wishful thinking. But now AP is reporting that two senior officials with the FBI are looking into the materials seized from ACORN office raids around the country to see if it can find evidence of coordinational national fraud on the part of ACORN.
Could the government use RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Practices Act) to stop ACORN’s outrageous conduct? I think it could. Briefly, RICO 18 U.S.C. § 1961-1968. is a federal law providing extended penalties for those who commit any two of 35 crimes  27 federal and eight state  within a 10-year period. The underlying crimes range from gambling to terrorism and include some offenses which would seem to cover the reported acts of ACORN (e.g., bribery, mail and phone fraud).
To give you an idea of how far the mail fraud sections of RICO have been utilized in federal prosecutions:
Prosecutors can build up on a foundation of “predicate acts†that:
may extend over two or three decades. They may include crimes on which the statute of limitations has run, crimes that could not themselves be prosecuted in a federal court, crimes that could not be joined with one another in separate prosecutions, crimes of which the defendant already has been convicted and for which he has been punished, and even crimes of which he has been acquitted in a state court. The courts, if faithful to the statute, have no way to prevent this sprawl.
Broader even yet than RICO prosecutions based on predicate crimes of mail fraud, bribery or other offenses, are those brought on conspiracy grounds:
Since he had been acquitted on the substantive RICO count, Mr. Salinas argued that had not committed the two predicate acts necessary to sustain a conviction for RICO conspiracy. Rejecting Mr. Salinas’ argument (as well as the rule in the First, Second, and Tenth Circuits), the Supreme Court applied the conventional meaning of the phrase “to conspire†and held that the RICO conspiracy statute requires only that the defendant intended to further criminal conduct that would violate RICO’s substantive prohibitions.(snip) The Supreme Court held that, although Salinas did not commit or agree to commit the predicate acts, “[t]he evidence showed that [the Sheriff] committed at least two acts of racketeering activity and that Salinas knew about and agreed to facilitate the scheme. This is sufficient to support a conviction under §1962(d).†Salinas, 1997 WL 737692 at *10. Thus, a RICO conspirator need not have committed or agreed to commit the underlying predicate acts so long as, if conspiracy’s object were accomplished, two predicate acts would be committed and the statute would be violated.
While the cavalry isn’t riding to the rescue even though they apparently have the means to do so, a group of Ohioans are. On October 14, the Buckeye Institute, whose membership includes former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, filed suit on behalf of two Ohio voters against ACORN and Project Vote/Voting for America.
The suit is brought under the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act, a state law similar to the federal RICO act. Among its factual assertions are these developed in Congressional hearings:
* From 2004-2006 ACORN has received $4.6 million in federal funds for its Housing Corporation.
* ACORN has 150 subsidiary organizations with a total operating budget of over $110 million this year.
* All the 150 subsidiaries operate from the top as a single enterprise, including the nonprofit Project Vote and the political operation known as Citizens Services.
* Citizens Services has endorsed Barack Obama and has received over $832,000 from Obama’s campaign during the primary period for services.
* ACORN and Citizen’s Services share the same board of directors. They also share office space in New Orleans.The suit documents numerous instances of in-state predicate acts, including the following:
* Forgery, uttering forged documents, tampering with writings and records.
* Harassing people to encourage them to register multiple times; bribing people to register multiple times; registering non-existent and clearly ineligible voters (like minors); registering the same person in multiple counties; providing fraudulent and forged documents.The suit documents numerous predicate acts committed by ACORN outside Ohio as well, specifically in Nevada, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Vrginia, Washington, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Mexico, Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Carolina.
The suit asks the court to take notice of the “lengthy and ubiquitous history of voter fraud, embezzlement, misuse of taxpayer funds†and concludes that ACORN’s pattern of fraud can no longer be dismissed as mere random unfortunate acts by some ACORN agents. Buckeye argues, and we can hardly dispute:
81. ACORN itself, and not just its agents, is responsible for the perpetration of the predicate acts articulated heretofore, in that it either acted with intent to cause these acts, or with negligence or reckless indifference as to whether these acts occurred.
82. Given its hiring, training, and compensation practices, ACORN knew or should have known that its conduct would cause fraud, and knows or should know that its conduct will cause fraud in the future.
I wonder: why the cavalry hasn’t suited up? Indeed, I can think of no good reason why it has failed to do so. Surely it’s as easy for the federal government, with all its resources, to start questioning witnesses and examining registration materials. It can examine ACORN’s books, and the materials seized from some of its offices. It can begin to prosecute this fraud which has such a damaging impact on the body politic and convinced the public that a fair election is impossible.
I suspect Clarice is offering this last question rhetorically, but the answer seems to be the catch-22 counted upon by those who follow the ACORN strategy: to investigate and find fraud would complete the work of undermining our faith in the integrity of the democratic process — leading to calls from politicians that “something be done” (which, given that they are politicians, and so entirely self-interested, would most likely end up being the wrong thing).
Like a DA’s office that is reluctant to release information on a corrupt prosecutor for fear that every case that prosecutor has ever worked would come under new scrutiny, the subtext here seems to be that uncovering the fraud might prove to be a bigger problem than the fraud itself.
I disagree with such “pragmatism” — but then, I don’t fear a wholesale cleansing of the current political class and all its endless ethical excesses.
Were I working on the inside, though, who knows? Perhaps I’d be more sympathetic to the notion that the cleanup has to happen quietly and internally if we are to maintain the illusion that democracy actually works.
Remember the WH Travel Office when the Clintons were elected?
It doesn’t make sense to piss off your likely new boss by trying to keep him from stealing the election.
Wee bit of an open tag running, methinks.
And my faith in the DoJ to confront Democrat corruption is nil.
Media. Bureaucracy. Education. Entertainment.
The order is variable; it depends on who is doing the heaviest lifting.
What about an open tag test with a close tag?
Read somewhere recently (NRO?) that DoJ staffers are overwhelmingly donating to O!‘s campaign so I really don’t see them prioritizing ACORN investigations, y’know.
I think it has to be kicked to the Court of Public Opinion.
You don’t want to get the “McCarthy” tag thrown on pursuing the truth.
The root of all this is that the Fed has blown through Constitutional safeguards, and become too powerful, attracting manipulators.
Let the Fed specify policy to States, but let the States do the taxing and implementation; moral hazard remains, but is localized.
Some unclosed font format tag is making all of PW look nice and proportional right now.
Could be this.
I think if pressed the DoJ would admit they don’t want to do this before an election.
I had an experience like this earlier in my life. I represented Jock Yablonski who was running for president of the UMWA. It was obvious the election was being stolen but DoL was reluctant to get involved because it would piss off their constituency–the labor unions.After Boyle won the stolen election Yablonsky, his wife and daughter were murdered in their beds. We went to the govt and again DoJ was reluctant to get involved–this time because it would show that DoL was in grave error when it refused to act before the election. The union used Time mag and others to spread lies to indicate that Yablonski had other enemies and was a crook. I insisted he had no such enemies and his only enemies were Boyle and his minions..We pressed for an immediate entry of the FBI into the case and John Mitchell gave in to our demand –within weeks the murderers were under arrest and in time they talked until finally the guy behind it all..UMWA president Tony Boyle was convicted of murder.
We got a new election–the first in the history of this country and we won.
But there are no do-overs in presidential elections.
DoJ had plenty of notice this had happened before and was happening again and could have been far more proactive, far earlier.
BTW–the ACORN violations of law are patent and easy to prove–with the FBI finally looking into their books and Ohio’s Buckeye Institute having initiated a lawsuit, a report from AcCORN’s lawyer noting countless violations of law and sound practices mysteriously made its way to a sympathetic NYT which quickly started putting lip gloss on it.http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/is_acorn_setting_up_a_nutty_de.html
> Perhaps I’d be more sympathetic to the notion that the cleanup has to happen quietly and internally
Wouldn’t that depend on whether said cleanup could/would happen quietly and internally?
Closing font tag. Closing tag.
Closing the font and pre tags didn’t work. How about the div tag?
Now (via “view source”) trying the tt tag, which I don’t even know what that’s supposed to be for anymore — if I ever did.
That didn’t work either, but it is the “tt” tag. Up in the HTML source of the post there’s a slip of the finger and the close tag looks like this: </tt?
ACORN is an imagined enemy. There is nothing more American than participating in and encouraging others to participate in America’s political system. The very foundation of our country is one man, one vote. The metaphoric “one man,” of course, includes every last poor, broken and humiliated soul; the “one man” is not meant as proprietary domain for the healthy, wealthy and strong.
America in its greatest day is a revolution of individuals who unite to wage war for self-determination and the right of every individual’s pursuit of happiness. Who do Americans fight? They don’t fight anymore, they trample. They line up to vote, and with every pull of the lever they fight with they’ve voices are heard. In voting Americans trample the forces from within who wish for an America exclusive to themselves, the “downpressers” as Bob Marley so famously called those “big fish” who try to eat down the “small fish” who would “do anything to materialize their every wish.”
“Woe to the downpressor, they’ll eat the bread of sad tomorrow.”
Barack Obama embodies many hopes and dreams of Americans, and many more narratives will be ascribed to him once his victorious day arrives. I think of him as the ultimate uppercut to America’s dumfocks, frankly, ha!
The man is who I’ve consistently said he was, Too Big, Too Strong. Obama is the One, for today anyway.
I think the tt tag is “typewriter font”.
Yeah, it’s likely as loved now as blink.
“Great defense mechanism – you don’t dare kill it.”
— Alien
I’m sure that Walt Disney would be fascinated to learn that Pinnochio has become a real boy. One man, one vote is completely dependent on that one vote being cast by one real man, as that real man intended. Hiring criminals specializing in ID theft to gin up fake registrations and fake votes doesn’t qualify….
thor @ 15:
I’m sure it sounded better in the original Italian.
It’s Patriotic to vote and encourage others to vote.
It’s unpatriotic to give targeted incentives to individuals with the purpose of influencing the vote.
“Comment by thor on 10/22 @ 1:24 pm #
ACORN is an imagined enemy.”
That’s as far as I got.
You’re a fucking idiot.
You’re fight with illiteracy hasn’t gone unnoticed, P-brain.
BTW, you’re not worthy of the grease in your butt hairs.
You’re = Your
See, you’re like a sexually transmitted wart of illiteracy.
Don’t you have a codex or something to deconstruct, thor? Such awesome intellect shouldn’t go unfed, y’know.
Which investigator and which attorney wants to be the target of smears and calumny?
Thor, you had it right the first time.
you’reyou are not worthy of the grease in your butt hairs.That makes you a morons moron, and the initial infection, not just the transmitter of the aforementioned wart.
Clarice,
Keep drawing the target on the donkey’s ass. We’ll need to know where to aim our darts in a month or so.
Right now, with your latest, it’s like shooting at the side of a barn. Even if they’re blindfolded, all 57 of our states’ AG’s can’t miss now.
-Steve
Damn the perfidiousness; full inquiry ahead!
There’s no right to vote. And the fact that complete morons who cannot understand the concept of government are voting is a travest and is destroying our country. We are going to finally break over the 50% of scumbags in this country who vote to confiscate the wealth of the minority. That’s it we’re fucked. It’ll swing back in 2 years but the damage inflicted by garbage parasites like that pussy Thor and his disgusting ilk will be far reaching and damaging unless a really strong president and a new republican congress gets some balls and beats Thor and his fellow vermin into the ground of history. If that happens, then there could possibly be hope.
Real Hope. And Change.
Hate to dash your hope donald, but Obama very possibly could appoint three SCJs, and unknown numbers of other judges, affecting the future of this country greatly. Especially as lib’s love legislating from the bench.
If you have any concept of what I just said, you should probably CHANGE your underpants.
[…] registrants, or picked names from lists at random in order to fill a quota. Some even suggested RICO prosecutions against ACORN, whose activities, it was claimed, undermined public faith in elections and […]