ACORN founder accused of embezzling nearly $1 million

NY Times:

Even as it battles charges of fraudulent voter registration practices in several states, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, is negotiating to sever all ties with its founder, whose brother embezzled almost $1 million from the group.

Two board members and Bertha Lewis, the organization’s interim chief organizer, or chief executive, met last week in New Orleans to hammer out a deal with the founder, Wade Rathke, according to board members who learned Tuesday of the talks. Mr. Rathke resigned as chief organizer after it became public this summer that his brother Dale had embezzled almost $1 million from the organization eight years ago.

Mr. Rathke retained control of Acorn International, however, and maintained its offices in buildings in New Orleans shared by Acorn and many of its 174 affiliates. Foundations that support Acorn financially, as well as many of the 51 voting members of its board, have been critical of that arrangement, saying it allows Mr. Rathke to retain his influence over the organization.

The deal, as described by board members, would hand Mr. Rathke control of the Wal-Mart Alliance for Reform Now, or WARN, an Acorn affiliate that focuses on what it considers to be unfair labor practices and other issues at Wal-Mart, and a radio station in Texas that is one of five media companies affiliated with Acorn, according to board members critical of the negotiations.

Ms. Lewis said there was no such deal and described the meeting as “a discussion.”

“Not to cast aspersions on your sources, but they’re always a little bit off,” she said. “We discussed about 60 different corporations. WARN came up, Acorn International came up, but we didn’t even discuss the radio stations.”

She said the various options for divorcing Mr. Rathke from Acorn would be presented to the board at its next meeting, which starts Friday. Mr. Rathke did not respond to an e-mail message seeking comment.

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It looks like some additional counts can be added to a RICO case against ACORN. If the allegations are true, it suggest that the corruption in the organization goes well beyond voter fraud allegations in several states. This organization appears to be a central part of the Democrat culture of corruption and its attempt to steal the coming election.

The NY Times really buried this story.