Legal News

Conservative Filmmaker Charged With Messing With Senator?s Phone

By Ashby Jones

James O’Keefe is an investigative journalist and filmmaker. He filmed and produced a 2009 investigative report that helped expose corruption within ACORN, including ACORN employees providing individuals they believed to be involved in an international under-age prostitution scheme with advice on how to break the law. Congress voted to defund ACORN shortly after the videos were released.

From Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government Web site, which first aired the footage taken by O’Keefe that led to the shakeup of ACORN.

Well, O’Keefe, 25 (pictured), on Monday earned himself another line on his rapidly evolving biography. The provocateur guerrilla filmmaker got arrested by the FBI for allegedly leading a plot to tamper with Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-La.) telephones inside the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans. Click here for the New Orleans Times-Picayune story.

Three others were arrested. Among them: Robert Flanagan, the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

Landrieu spokesman Aaron Saunders told the Times-Picayune that the senator could not comment.

O’Keefe on Thursday gave a speech to the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, a libertarian group in New Orleans. The New Orleans event was promoted with this glowing statement about O’Keefe by the Pelican Institute: “James has been a pioneer in the use of new media to drive these kinds of important stories. He will discuss the role of new media and show examples of effective investigative reporting.”

The four men appeared in federal magistrate court this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Louis Moore wearing red inmate jumpstuits from St. Bernard Parish Prison, where they are being held. Moore is allowing the men to be released on $10,000 bond.

Robert Flanagan’s attorney, J. Garrison Jordan, said he believes his client works for the Pelican Institute. Asked the motivation for the alleged wiretap plot, he said: “I think it was poor judgment. I don’t think there was any intent or motive to commit a crime.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 26, 2010 (boomark / email).