Although nearly half the Republicans polled after President Barack Obama’s election in 2012 blamed the low-income advocacy group ACORN for his win, the group had actually been out of business since 2010 thanks mostly to bogus sting operations launched by James O’Keefe.

One of those stings just cost O’Keefe $100,000.

On Tuesday, the conservative activist agreed to pay the money to former ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera, who was videotaped in 2009 at his office in National City, just south of San Diego, engaged in what O’Keefe depicted as illegal behavior. The heavily-edited video purported to show Vera willing to help O’Keefe smuggle underage girls into the United States to be prostitutes.

Vera hired a lawyer and sued, alleging that O’Keefe’s deceptions—he dressed in a suit at the ACORN office, but sported a stereotypical ‘70s pimp outfit in the edited video—included surreptitiously recording the encounter. That’s a violation of California law.

O’Keefe’s attorney told the Los Angeles Times his client denied everything and paid the “nuisance settlement” to be rid of the hassle. The settlement included a short non-apology apology that O’Keefe “regrets any pain suffered by Mr. Vera or his family.”

O’Keefe and associate Hannah Giles, who agreed to a settlement earlier in the year, posted a video of the encounter on the internet, unaware that Vera had already reported them to the authorities for suggesting he break the law. Then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown investigated in 2010 and, after granting them immunity from prosecution for turning over unedited copies of their videos, said that a civil law suit could be brought against the couple. 

O’Keefe has been a cause celebre in GOP circles for years and was championed by recently-deceased conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart. He shot a number of secret videos of encounters with ACORN workers, which he doctored before posting on the internet.

ACORN, which stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, worked with low- and moderate-income families on social issues like voter registration, health care and affordable housing. The group, which had 500,000 members in 1,200 neighborhood chapters, was demonized by conservative activists and eventually starved of money and forced to close by a thoroughly intimidated Congress.

O’Keefe was arrested in early 2010 for trying to make secret recordings at the New Orleans office of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) and received three years probation. He released a doctored video later in the year that deceptively claimed Census supervisors encouraged workers to file false time sheets. In 2011, O’Keefe released a typically heavily-edited video of an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) executive Ron Schiller that led to his resignation.     

Now that the National City ACORN suit is behind them, O’Keefe’s lawyer, Michael Madigan, told the Times that his client is moving on and “has a full career ahead as a talented investigative journalist.”

O’Keefe has appeared numerous times on Fox News.

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

Totally Blameless Crime-Stopper James O’Keefe to Pay $100,000 to Acorn Criminal (by Matthew Phelan and Liz Farkas, Wonkette)

Conservative Activist Pays $100,000 to Former ACORN Worker (by Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times)

Out of Context: The James O'Keefe Story (by Sean Easter, MediaMatters)

The NPR Video and Political Dirty Tricks (by Michael Gerson, Washington Post)

Juan Carlos Vera v. James O’Keefe III and Hannah Giles (U.S. District Court, Southern District of California)