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James O'Keefe Charged With U.S. Senate Office Infiltration In New Orleans
Four men were charged Tuesday after attempting to illegally access and manipulate the phone system in a district office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, a local U.S. attorney's office said.
Joseph Basel, 24, Robert Flanagan, 24, James O'Keefe, 25, and Stan Dai, 24, were charged with entering Landrieu's New Orleans office, which is federal property, under "false pretenses for the purpose of committing a Felony," according to the attorney's office.
Law enforcement officials say they believe O'Keefe is the conservative activist of the same name who dressed up as a pimp last summer and visited an office of ACORN, a liberal community organizing group, in order to solicit advice on setting up a brothel, among other scenarios.
He secretly recorded the visits on video and posted them on the Web, leading to a media firestorm.
Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, his office said.
Articles on conservative Web sites connect O'Keefe to a man named Joe Basel, describing them as conservative student activists and filmmakers.
According to the news release Tuesday and an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Steven Rayes, who is based in New Orleans, Basel and Flanagan attempted to gain access to Landrieu's office Monday while posing as telephone repairmen.
The two men were "each dressed in blue denim pants, a blue work shirt, a light green fluorescent vest, a tool belt and a construction-style hard hat when they entered the Hale Boggs Federal Building," the release said.
After they entered the building, the two men told a staffer in Landrieu's office they were telephone repairmen, according to the release and Rayes' affidavit. They then asked for, and were granted, access to the reception desk's phone system.
O'Keefe, who had been waiting in the office before the pair arrived, recorded their actions with a cell phone, Rayes' affidavit said.
Flanagan and Basel later requested access to a telephone closet, claiming they needed to perform work on the main phone system, the release and affidavit said.
According to Rayes' affidavit, the two men went to a U.S. General Services Administration office on another floor and requested access to the main phone system. A GSA employee then asked for their credentials, and the two men said they left them in their vehicle, the affidavit said.
All four men have admitted their roles in the operation to federal agents, Rayes' affidavit said.
If convicted, the four men would each face a fine of $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison, according to the news release.
"Because the details of yesterday's incident are part of an ongoing investigation by federal authorities, our office cannot comment at this time," Landrieu spokesman Aaron Saunders told CNN.
Articles posted January 14 on CampusReform.org and Political Vanguard, both conservative Web sites, quoted O'Keefe and a man identified as Joe Basel as conservative student activists and independent filmmakers.
"Don't just respond to news, but actually create your own headlines," O'Keefe is quoted as saying by CampusReform.org
ACORN Employee Sues Undercover Filmmakers
The civil lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia accuses the filmmakers of illegally recording their conversation with the worker.
An employee at a Philadelphia branch of ACORN, the national community organization under fire for allegations of wrongdoing, has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the two filmmakers who set off the controversy last fall with their undercover videos.
The civil lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia accuses the filmmakers, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, of illegally recording their conversation with the worker, Katherine Conway-Russell, and then publicizing the videos, which Conway-Russell says "caused emotional distress, harm and injury."
Conway-Russell is featured in one of several videos recorded by O'Keefe and Giles, who posed as a pimp and prostitute and visited ACORN offices around the country with a hidden camera. The videos, released initially through the conservative Web site BigGovernment.com, showed ACORN employees seeming to offer to help the couple skirt tax and housing laws while setting up a brothel.
Conway-Russell, an office director with ACORN Housing Corporation since March 2008, accuses O'Keefe and Giles of visiting the Philadelphia office July 24 to "entrap ... employees into engaging in inappropriate counseling," adding that she made clear to them that she could only offer assistance with "mortgage possibilities." The lawsuit doesn't go into details of the conversation.
It's hardly the first time ACORN or its employees have responded to the controversy over its operations by suing.
The organization filed a lawsuit in Baltimore in late September accusing the filmmakers and BigGovernment.com of illegally recording conversations at a Baltimore ACORN office and then posting them online.
And in November, representatives for ACORN sued the federal government in an attempt to regain the millions of dollars in funding the community organizing group lost after Congress responded to the undercover videos by voting to block the funding.
ACORN also has faced allegations of voter fraud during the 2008 presidential election.
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Sources: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Google Maps
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