Serial liar and video manipulator, James O’Keefe, is taking an odd approach to his his defense on charges of making unlawful, recordings. The charges were filed in California in a case involving former ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera, who was falsely portrayed in a heavily edited videotape as assisting O’Keefe’s phony prostitution ring when, in fact, Vera was skeptical from the start and notified the police immediately after O’Keefe left his office.
Now O’Keefe’s lawyers are claiming that he was within his rights to surreptitiously record the conversations citing MTV’s Punk’d as a precedent. This is so stupid that I have to wonder if Ashton Kutcher is providing O’Keefe’s legal defense team.
A team of four lawyers is defending O’Keefe on a pro bono basis in the suit filed by one of O’Keefe’s targets, and they’re citing everything from the writings of James Madison to Ashton Kutcher’s MTV show ‘Punk’d’ to a Woody Allen segment on ‘Candid Camera’ to claim O’Keefe’s ACORN sting is protected by the First Amendment.
Do O’Keefe’s lawyers know that Punk’d was an entertainment program that deliberately misled its victims with the intent of embarrassing them for the shock value? Perhaps they do because that’s a pretty good description of what O’Keefe’s Project Veritas does.
There are, however, a couple of significant differences between Punk’d and Project Veritas. For one, there was no malice or harm intended on the part of Kutcher & Co. They even included friends and family of the subjects in the ruse. Also, Punk’d always obtained signed releases from their subjects giving permission to release the videos prior to broadcasting anything. That’s a step O’Keefe conspicuously neglected.
Perhaps the most notable assertion in this line of defense is that it is an admission that O’Keefe is not a journalist, as he likes to portray himself. That is, not unless he thinks Ashton Kutcher is following in the footsteps of Edward R. Murrow. By aligning himself in sworn legal documents with a comedy show that features purposeful deceit, O’Keefe is undercutting any claim he may have had to First Amendment protections for the press.
Nice work punk.
Equally ludicrous is O’Keefe’s partner in crime, Hannah Giles, pleading that she “shouldn’t be held responsible because she wasn’t the one doing the actual recording.” I’m sure that argument has produced acquittals for many getaway drivers who weren’t doing the actual bank robbing.
The ACORN sting was Giles’ idea. She recruited O’Keefe and participated in every step of the plan. It’s sort of funny that now she wants to pin it all on him.
When Glenn McCarthy says you’re a deceptive liar, you got a HUGE problem. How has big bird here recovered from that (horribly constructed) ‘sting’ of seducing that CNN reporter?
Well, at least O’Keefe is getting his money’s worth from his pro bono lawyers. LOL
Why is this guy not being sued by about 100 other people?
Good point and good question.
Isn’t James O’Keefe on federal probation for trying to break into a congresswoman’s phone system? Isn’t taping or recording someone without their knowledge illegal? Won’t that be a probation violation? Real Journalist report the news objectively. They don’t create or prefab a story. They don’t become part of a story. Calling this felon a journalist is an afront to real journalist and to the informed citizen. Prosecute this instigator
.
Is there any chance this guy could do jail time? It is what he deserves, deliberately defaming his victims and they are victims of his crimes.