Remember James O’Keefe?

That would be the same James O’Keefe who brought down community organizing and voter registration organization ACORN in his march to becoming a conservative icon for his alleged ‘good works’.

Matthew Phelan and Liz Farkas over at Wonkette have broken the story about the first bit of blowback resulting from O’Keefe’s brand of ‘journalism’.

It seems that the master of the cleverly edited—if highly deceptive—video reel is now being required to pay the sum of $100,000 to Juan Carlos Vera, a one time California employee of ACORN. Mr. Vera had been portrayed by O’Keefe as being a willing participant when O’Keefe and his accomplice, Hanna Giles, proposed smuggling young women into the United States to work as prostitutes.

While Mr. Vera had no idea he was being surreptitiously video taped—which is not surprising given that California law expressly bars the secret recording of one’s voice or image—there was also something Mr. O’Keefe did not know until after he released the damaging video of his conversation with Vera for broadcast.

As soon as O’Keefe and his partner-in-crime left the ACORN location, Mr. Vera called the police to report the entire incident. It turns out that Vera had been playing along with O’Keefe in an effort to ensnare O’Keefe and Giles whom Vera believed were in the act of breaking the law by proposing to engage in the importing of young women to become prostitutes.

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