NEW YORK - ACORN employees caught on video advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend to lie about her profession and launder her earnings did not commit a crime, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said Monday.
The office began its investigation Sept. 15, the day after the video was released online by the conservative activists who posed as an outlaw couple seeking help buying a house. It was but one in a series of such videos filmed at ACORN offices around the country that sparked a national scandal and helped drive the organization to near ruin.
"We are gratified that the district attorney, after a thorough investigation, found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by ACORN," said a statement by Jean Sassine, a spokeswoman for the organization that has replaced ACORN's Brooklyn operation.
Several of ACORN's local offices have officially disbanded and resumed operations under new names and with similar staff in an effort to escape the scandal that has surrounded the 40-year-old organization in recent months. In Brooklyn, the newly established New York Communities for Change "is committed to moving forward with management and transparency reforms and building a strong independent organization to advocate for low-income New Yorkers," Sassine said.
Typically, in cases like this, no one will get charged because a crime was not actually committed even though it was discussed. Two important points jump out at me:
1st, Brooklyn's district attorney did not conduct a sting to see if real crimes were being committed.
2nd, ACORN has changed it's name, not it's ways.
