Apparently reacting to reports of workers removing documents from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) headquarters in New Orleans, Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has executed a search warrant on the premises today. According to local news sources, computer hard drives and payroll records are being seized for analysis.
The investigation pertains to a decade-old embezzlement case that came to light only last year. Dale Rathke, brother of the organization’s founder, had stolen $1 million from an ACORN affiliate that he ran. (The Attorney General recently asserted in an affidavit that the embezzlement reached $5 million.) When the theft was discovered, a handful of ACORN officials covered it up, hiding the information even from the group’s directors out of fear that publication could be embarrassing to the group’s left-wing mission.
Rathke agreed to pay back the money he had stolen, and eventually a donor paid off his “debt” to ACORN. But the cover-up ended in 2008 when the scandal was leaked to the press.
Many of those involved in the cover-up continue to work within the ACORN family of organizations, and two directors who demanded a public accounting of the funds were summarily purged from the board.
