Developing Story: Rathke Allegedly Embezzled $5 Million from ACORN

New reports are coming out about just how much money, Dale Rathke, may have embezzled from the community organizing group ACORN. This story initially broke on The Times-Picayune with a report of the Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell issuing a subpoena, on Monday, requesting document from Citizens Consulting Inc. and from various accounting and legal consultants in New Orleans.

The following statement, taken from the subpoena, really explains the reasoning for the new investigation.

“Current high-ranking members of ACORN have publicly acknowledged that embezzlement did in fact occur, but the exact amount of the embezzlement was unknown until it was recently acknowledged in a board of directors meeting on Oct. 17, 2008, by Bertha Lewis and Liz Wolf that an internal review had determined that the amount embezzled was $5 million,… “

Wait a second! Did they say recently acknowledged while the board of directors meeting took place on October 17, of 2008? That was just shy of being a year ago and yet leaders of ACORN, current and past, have still maintained that it was only $1 million in a number of recent statements. Bertha Lewis, ACORN Chief Executive Officer, still claims the newly reported amount is “completely false.” I’m just wondering what her statement will look like if it is indeed discovered that the $5 million embezzlement number proves to be true.

The subpoena also states,

“It is still unclear if some of the monies embezzled are from state, federal or private funds.”

Former ACORN employee turned whistleblower, Anita MonCrief, worked closely with New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom last year before the editors of the Times chose not to run the story with the Election soon approaching. Anita informed Strom that the real figure of embezzled funds by Dale Rathke was $5 million instead of the admitted $1 million.

Many accusations have been made as to why the Times chose not to run the story with the soon approaching Presidential Election. With the NYTimes being a heavy supporter of the Obama Campaign, it was suspected that maybe they were afraid it would bring a black eye to the then Candidate Barack Obama. Other stories believe that maybe someone from his team advised the Times to not run the story because of his past ties with the community organization.

Michelle Malkin thoroughly points out some of the details as this story has progressed.

ACORN's New Orleans office is for sale

Other recent news surrounding the ACORN organization involves the organization putting it’s New Orleans office up for sale after the IRS and state filed tax liens of $548,000 and $26,026 against ACORN in New Orleans. They are said to be moving their headquarters to their Washington, DC office. Do you suppose they are making this move to be closer to the many politicians who have protected them and continue to protect them?

Other stories of interest:

1. Big Government releases ACORN Video from Philadelphia, PA
2. More Nuts (Acorn) in the Obama Administration
3. King Calls on Conyers to Conduct Full Investigation of ACORN
4. Congressman King accuses Reid of Protecting ACORN
5. Big Government continues to expose ACORN with ACORNs Lifeblood