WALL OF SHAME: A secret video of ACORN’s Brooklyn office (inset) shows a dry-erase board with forbidden political endorsements of Richard Aborn for Manhattan district attorney and Bill de Blasio for public advocate.
On the same hidden-camera video in which loan counselors at ACORN’s Brooklyn office helped a hooker skirt the law, a list of the supposedly nonpartisan group’s primary-election endorsements can be seen in the background.
As a tax-exempt 501c3 nonprofit, ACORN is not permitted to endorse candidates or host political events.
But on a prominently displayed dry-erase board visible in the video, ACORN backs Bill de Blasio for public advocate and Richard Aborn for Manhattan district attorney.
These are the same candidates backed by the Working Families Party, which shares office space with ACORN.
Under each candidate’s name is a list of canvassers working in the campaigns.
The community organizing group is flagrantly violating tax law, much the same way ACORN’s loan counselors advised a prostitute to lie and cheat the system, said Kyle Olson, editor of the blog ACORNcracked.com.
“Local authorities should look into whether the local ACORN office — which, by the way, also houses the national ACORN CEO and chief organizer Bertha Lewis — is engaging in political activity with tax dollars,” said Olson.
“The videos released over the last several days appear to display a pattern of extremely questionable activities and dubious advice from morally-depraved ACORN employees in several cities. If this evidence doesn’t warrant a closer look from local and federal authorities, what will?” Olson asked.
ACORN insists it is not doing anything wrong because the primary endorsements and campaigning are being done by the group’s political action committee, spokesman Scott Levenson said.
The group’s political wing has backed de Blasio, but has made no endorsement in the district attorney race, Levenson said.
ACORN has also been under fire for raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in earmarks through a second nonprofit called the New York Agency for Community Affairs.
The two nonprofits are virtually indistinguishable, said state Sen. Stephen Saland (R-Poughkeepsie).
“It is troubling that ACORN, an organization deeply entrenched in promoting political candidates, is receiving member items from the same politicians who benefit from ACORN’s campaign assistance,” Saland wrote in a letter to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
“To ignore the need for an investigation of these member items would be a gross injustice,” Saland added.