James O’Keefe, the conservative activist filmmaker, made quite a name for himself for his shocking undercover video tapes of ACORN. The tapes, in which he and a friend posed as a pimp and a prostitute, sparked a firestorm against the community group, even threatening its federal funding.
Now O’Keefe has spent a night behind bars, arrested in the aftermath of what presumably was his latest video project.
Federal prosecutors have charged him, and three alleged cohorts, with “entering federal property under false pretenses for the purposes of committing a felony.” The Feds say they tried to “manipulate,” or “maliciously…interfere” with the phone system of Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu.
The allegations are basically this –that O’Keefe was standing in the reception area of the Senator’s New Orleans office, when two alleged accomplices came in, claiming they were from the phone company. They were dressed in “blue denim pants, blue work shirts, light green fluorescent vests, tool belts, and construction-style hard hats.” They then proceeded to check the main telephone at the reception desk, picking it up, and even calling it from their cellphone. As they did this, O’Keefe was allegedly taping it all with his cellphone camera.
When the pair asked to check the telephone closest, and did not have telephone company credentials, workers became suspicious and they were later arrested by U.S Marshalls. Authorities say O’Keefe and the others, including one who is the son of a federal prosecutor, admitted they were all part of this operation.
What was his intent?
No where in the media material provided by the Department of Justice is there an allegation that they were trying to wiretap the Senator’s phones, though there are reports a listening device was found in one of the suspect’s cars.
The nature of O’Keefe’s apparent video project also remains unclear. He spent the night in jail and his lawyer was waiting to hear from him. Attorney Michael Madigan told me, “We don’t have any of the facts yet, but James O’Keefe, at heart, is a really good kid. We are looking into this further and are awaiting hearing from James directly.”
A source close to James told me “they were not attempting to wiretap the phones or anything like that,” and another source said “he would not want to do anything wrong.”
But now he and the others face federal charges that could potentially bring ten years in prison if convicted, while the reason O’Keefe was allegedly recording remains unexplained.