Long story short, O'Keefe and his accomplice Hannah Giles have settled a lawsuit brought against them by Juan Vera, a wrongly fired ACORN employee. The pair was paid $65,000 and $60,000 respectively by Andrew Breitbart's company to impersonate child sex traffickers in a visit to a Califonia ACORN office. O'Keefe and Giles illegally videotaped Vera, then O'keefe selectively edited the footage to make it appear Vera was acting improperly. Vera was then fired after the edited tape was released, even though state officials determined he had acted properly, notifying the police as soon as the impostors left the ACORN office..
O'Keefe is paying the employee $100,000 and Giles paid an additional undisclosed sum after settling the suit earlier. Apparently he or his lawyers think that settling, admitting guilt, apologizing on the record and paying out six figures in damages is less damaging than the prospect of losing at trial.
It's nice to see justice prevail, and hopefully the next time this idiot breaks the law someone will put him in jail where he belongs.
Right, how is he not in jail after trying to bug the phone of a US Senator?
And the only thing missing from your summary, Stiles, is the math the Atlantic Wire was kind enough to do for readers:
As Wonkette notes, O'Keefe was reportedly paid $65,000 by Breitbart to write a blog post about the video series. Meaning that O'Keefe got all that fame and attention for the low price of $35,000.
Long story short, O'Keefe and his accomplice Hannah Giles have settled a lawsuit brought against them by Juan Vera, a wrongly fired ACORN employee. The pair was paid $65,000 and $60,000 respectively by Andrew Breitbart's company to impersonate child sex traffickers in a visit to a Califonia ACORN office. O'Keefe and Giles illegally videotaped Vera, then O'keefe selectively edited the footage to make it appear Vera was acting improperly. Vera was then fired after the edited tape was released, even though state officials determined he had acted properly, notifying the police as soon as the impostors left the ACORN office..
O'Keefe is paying the employee $100,000 and Giles paid an additional undisclosed sum after settling the suit earlier. Apparently he or his lawyers think that settling, admitting guilt, apologizing on the record and paying out six figures in damages is less damaging than the prospect of losing at trial.
It's nice to see justice prevail, and hopefully the next time this idiot breaks the law someone will put him in jail where he belongs.
Unfortunately, there is no admission of guilt here.
I wonder where the defence and settlement money are coming from.
I wonder if this dude will:
1. Modify his behaviour and attempt to become merely a journalist with a point of view
2. Continue along the same path
3. Become a drooling addict and be found dead on the toilet in a year
Am I the only one who thinks that 0.1M$ is a low award for sabotaging someone's career for the rest of their life? Vera is going to be followed by this wherever he goes, from now on, at any large company that's not a left-leaning political firm. He'll have an easier time getting a foot in the door at a few places, but if he wants to have a normal career, working for a normal company, he's going to find that anywhere he goes, odds are, one of the higher-ups is a fan of the other side of the story. The rumor will get around his office after a few weeks, "Hey, did you hear who Vera is?" And pretty soon, he's going to find out that everyone in the office has an opinion about him, not all of them good, and some of them from his superiors.
Even if he works for a firm that loves him and the struggle he represents, subconciously, they're going to know that he doesn't have many other options for places to go, and they're not going to feel the same pressure to give him raises and promotions when he deserves them.
A one time award that's less than what some people make in a year seems like a pretty shoddy fix for that kind of career damage.
Vera is going to be followed by this wherever he goes, from now on, at any large company that's not a left-leaning political firm. He'll have an easier time getting a foot in the door at a few places, but if he wants to have a normal career, working for a normal company, he's going to find that anywhere he goes, odds are, one of the higher-ups is a fan of the other side of the story. The rumor will get around his office after a few weeks, "Hey, did you hear who Vera is?" And pretty soon, he's going to find out that everyone in the office has an opinion about him, not all of them good, and some of them from his superiors.
Even if he works for a firm that loves him and the struggle he represents, subconciously, they're going to know that he doesn't have many other options for places to go, and they're not going to feel the same pressure to give him raises and promotions when he deserves them.
A one time award that's less than what some people make in a year seems like a pretty shoddy fix for that kind of career damage.
That's because it's a settlement, not an award. Vera agreed to accept it. There are dozens of reasons why he would have that have little do do with any of what you said above. Settlements are by nature an incomplete remedy.
Indeed. I'm wondering if they didn't wait 'til he was economically exhausted from pursuing his claim, and then offer him a lowball settlement to end it.
Either way, seems like O'Keefe and Co. got off easy on this one.
baudot said:
Indeed. I'm wondering if they didn't wait 'til he was economically exhausted from pursuing his claim, and then offer him a lowball settlement to end it.
His lawyer may have been on contingency. You never know. I may have taken Vera's case on contingency. In those cases you don't get exhausted.
Either way, seems like O'Keefe and Co. got off easy on this one.
Yeah, it does seem a little low. It's possible that Vera had some bad facts out there that he didn't want aired. Or it's possible that he just didn't care about money and just wanted to be able to say he got O'Keefe to pay him 6 figures. Without being involved, it's impossible to say. Settlement does seem low from my perspective, but there may have been extenuating circumstances.
baudot said:
Indeed. I'm wondering if they didn't wait 'til he was economically exhausted from pursuing his claim, and then offer him a lowball settlement to end it.
His lawyer may have been on contingency. You never know. I may have taken Vera's case on contingency. In those cases you don't get exhausted.
Either way, seems like O'Keefe and Co. got off easy on this one.
Yeah, it does seem a little low. It's possible that Vera had some bad facts out there that he didn't want aired. Or it's possible that he just didn't care about money and just wanted to be able to say he got O'Keefe to pay him 6 figures. Without being involved, it's impossible to say. Settlement does seem low from my perspective, but there may have been extenuating circumstances.
Another thing to think about is that Vera was working for a non-profit and probably making around $35K a year at the time. So the settlement could end up being (ROUGH ESTIMATE) about 3 times his yearly salary, or about triple his actual annual damages. Not too terrible when you look at it from that perspective.
Also bear in mind that, since this was an out-of-court settlement, it has no impact on any other legal actions against O'Keefe - civil or criminal - that might be undertaken in other states.
Because he was granted immunity from California in exchange for turning over the unedited tapes recorded there, he can't face criminal charges in that state. But I don't know of any similar deals in any other states. Which means that any other state with two-party consent laws (like California has) could still prosecute him for the same violations.
And even states with one-party consent can still allow defamation or fraud suits to go forward based on the misleading editing.
In case anyone is wondering, the states where he made recordings in ACORN offices and which have two-party consent laws are California, Florida, Maryland and Pennsylvania. And as far as I can discover, only California among those has granted him immunity from prosecution.
Stiles
Philadelphia, PA
November 2002
MAR 08, 2013 07:53 AM