California AG to probe ACORN tapes

SACRAMENTO, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- California Attorney General Jerry Brown says his office will look into videos purportedly showing members of ACORN offering advice on how to open a brothel.

In a letter to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month and made public Thursday, Chief Deputy Attorney General James M. Humes said the office "opened an investigation of both ACORN and the circumstances under which ACORN employees were videotaped," The Sacramento Bee reported Friday.

The controversy centers on a series of surreptitiously taped videos in which a couple posed as a pimp and a prostitute were advised on how to set up their business by people identified as workers with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Under California law, it is illegal to videotape people without their permission, except in some cases for security purposes, the Bee wrote.

"ACORN welcomes the investigation of Attorney General Brown into the illegal videotaping of ACORN workers," ACORN spokesman David Lagstein said. "The investigation will show that the only crime committed was by" the videographers.

Schwarzenegger, who asked Brown to investigate the matter two weeks ago, praised the decision Thursday.

"I am outraged and deeply concerned by these allegations," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "If these reports are true, they warrant prosecution under the fullest extent of the law."