Judge OK’s Privacy Suit by Ex-Acorn Worker in Infamous Video

A former employee of the now-defunct community-organizing group videotaped in a 2009 guerrilla-type sting will be able to pursue an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against the conservative activists who secretly filmed their meeting, Courthouse News Service reports.

A federal judge has refused a request by defendant James O’Keefe to throw out the suit filed in 2010 by Juan Carlos Vera. Mr. Vera was one of the workers for Acorn who, in a notorious set of undercover videos, appeared to offer advice to a pimp and prostitute (portrayed by Mr. O’Keefe and a fellow activist) on launching a brothel.

U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz said the case should be allowed to go to trial because, counter to defense claims, Mr. Vera had a reasonable expectation that the encounter was private. The judge noted that Mr. O’Keefe asked the Acorn staff member early in the discussion if the conversation would be confidential.

Mr. O’Keefe’s Acorn videos were widely disseminated in the news media and led to a congressional suspension of federal contracts for Acorn, which offered assistance on housing, taxes, and voting rights for low-income people. The scandal was a major factor in the 40-year-old organization’s subsequent decision to declare bankruptcy and shut down.