Constitutional Law, Torts

It’s Hard Out There For A Pimp

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

OKeefeJuan Carlos Vera will receive (US)$100,000 in a settlement of his lawsuit against James O’Keefe. The money is to be paid within 30 days and, as part of the settlement, O’Keefe “regrets any pain suffered by Mr. Vera or his family.” Vera was an employee of ACORN in National City, California, when, in 2009, James O’Keefe, posing as a law school student boyfriend (not a pimp) and Hannah Giles, dressed similarly to a prostitute, surreptitiously video-taped the encounter. A “severely edited” version was published by the late Andrew Breitbart and Vera was subsequently fired.

During the encounter, O’Keefe and Giles proposed smuggling young women into the United States to work as prostitutes. Unbeknownst to O’Keefe and Giles, Vera called his cousin, Detective Alejandro Hernandez of the National City Police Department, to report the incident. Breitbart worte: “Juan Vera called [his police officer] cousin LONG after videos were filmed.” However, according to a report from the California Attorney General’s Office, Vera called his cousin “Immediately after the couple left.” The detective, in turn, contacted a federal task force that deals in human smuggling.

The California Invasion of Privacy Act expressly bars secretly recording someone’s voice or image. O’Keefe and Giles were given immunity from prosecution in exchange for the complete and unedited videos. That immunity doesn’t apply to private lawsuits and Giles settled last summer for an undisclosed amount.

O’Keefe tried to obtain a motion for judgement on the pleading by claiming that he was protected by the First Amendment since he was a “journalist”. In his denial of the motion, Judge M. James Lorenz properly noted the Supreme Court of California case SHULMAN v. GROUP PRODUCTIONS INC, where the court found:

… no constitutional precedent or principle of which we are aware gives a reporter general license to intrude in an objectively offensive manner into private places, conversations or matters merely because the reporter thinks he or she may thereby find something that will warrant publication or broadcast.

Eugene Iredale, attorney for Vera, said O’Keefe and his people “requested confidentiality and we said no.”

Settling was a smart move for O’Keefe. It avoids the multiple news stories of the day-to-day proceedings of a court trial. One news story in the media about the settlement and that will soon be forgotten. Although O’Keefe has called the lawsuit “meritless,” the conservative media has not echoed his claim, preferring to keep the faithful ignorant.

H/T: Conor Friedersdorf, Stefen BC, Brad Friedman, Matthew Phelan and Liz Farkas, Erik Wemple, Rick Unger.

32 thoughts on “It’s Hard Out There For A Pimp”

  1. What lotta and ap said about O’Keefe. He is dirty and should be behind bars.

  2. lottakatz 1, March 9, 2013 at 1:36 pm

    That “creepily abnormal O’Keefe fellow” (LOL, good one, I agree.) should be in jail for attempting to bug Mary Landrieu’s office. Somebody in power loves him. Dodging a bullet once is luck but twice?

    —-

    Yep.

  3. Do you remember this O’Keefe story?

    James O’Keefe’s CNN Prank FAILS: Activist Planned To Stage Seduction Of Abbie Boudreau On Floating ‘Pleasure Palace’
    By Jason Linkins
    First Posted: 09/29/10
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/james-okeefe-cnn-abbie-boudreau_n_743313.html

    Excerpt:
    In one of the most bizarre and hilarious stories you are likely to read today, CNN’s Scott Zamost reports that during the production of a CNN documentary series on young up-and-coming conservative activists, infamous “ACORN pimp” James O’Keefe hatched a strange plot to pull a prank on CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau, involving a staged seduction attempt on a boat, with candles and dildos. Huh, what?

    A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating “palace of pleasure” and making sexually suggestive comments, e-mails and a planning document show.

    James O’Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show.

    Boudreau describes the matter as a “very strange turn,” which is something of an understatement.

  5. That “creepily abnormal O’Keefe fellow” (LOL, good one, I agree.) should be in jail for attempting to bug Mary Landrieu’s office. Somebody in power loves him. Dodging a bullet once is luck but twice?

  7. Mike Spindell
    1, March 9, 2013 at 12:23 pm
    Matt,

    I know about Atwater’s death bed repentance and considering the bad things he did, I think it was too little to late.
    ========================================
    It doesn’t amount to much. He was feeling sorry for himself. I’m not convinced it was genuine.

  9. I am very pleased that Mr. Vera was able to obtain some sort of justice from that creepily abnormal O’Keefe fellow.

  10. The politicians killed the main organizer of the poor. Now if we could just get them to kill the main organizers of the rich……

  11. Nal, Good pickup on this. It’s fairly big here in San Diego since the incident was here. There’s a piece in the SD paper this morning about the victim. He’s living in Tijuana and selling cars. He was hurt by this, but he seems to have moved on, a great positive quality. What was really chickenshit was the defense barrister being quoted in this article, “This was a nuisance settlement.” Completely classless!

  12. I’m sorry it settled….. It would have made great story’s on here….. It good that it settled though….

    1. Matt,

      I know about Atwater’s death bed repentance and considering the bad things he did, I think it was too little to late.

  14. Sadly, the myth spread about the “dreaded” Acorn is alive and well, even though the organization is defunct. Breitbart was definitely this eras version of Lee Atwater and those of religious bent might speculate on both their early, untimely deaths.

  15. “49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn’t exist anymore.” Public Policy Polling

  16. … no constitutional precedent or principle of which we are aware gives a reporter general license to intrude in an objectively offensive manner into private places, conversations or matters merely because the reporter thinks he or she may thereby find something that will warrant publication or broadcast.

    Eugene Iredale, attorney for Vera, said O’Keefe and his people “requested confidentiality and we said no.”
    —————————————
    Is somebody pregnant?

  18. Great story David. I can’t understand why he was given immunity from prosecution. They could have gotten the tapes if they indicted him and the fear of going to jail might actually deter this serial liar.

  19. Fox news reported the congressional murder of a good group:

    Republicans succeeded in drawing overwhelming support from Democrats Thursday to eliminate federal funding to a now-scandalized ACORN, the community organizing group that has come under heavy fire in the wake of damaging undercover videos that purport to show counselors giving advice on tax fraud to a “pimp” and “prostitute.”

    The House voted 345-75 to strike ACORN funding from a student aid bill with two voting present.

    Later, the Senate voted 85-11 to eliminate ACORN funding from an Interior Department spending bill.

    (Fox News). The herd heard a sound and ran like rats as the banksters and warmongers noted more money available for their subsidies and bailouts.

    Needy Americans be damed they sang in their bully religion churches.

  20. Let’s not forget that ACORN was killed by the congress, both democrats and republicans, voting with their pitchforks out.

    The stampeded senselessly like soccer fans who trample their own to death over nothing real.

    A shameful spectacle from any view IMO.

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