NATIONAL CITY—
An ACORN employee in National City seen on
videotape offering a duo posing as a prostitute and her pimp advice on getting
12 young girls across the border from Mexico has been fired.The video appears to indict the ACORN worker. It shows a National City ACORN employee discussing ways to smuggle young girls across the border. Minutes later the same worker is seen on video asking how much a woman who claims to be a prostitute charges. According to the man in the video, Juan Carlos Vera, the video seen from coast to coast on national television is not what it seems. With tears streaming down his face and at times clearly irate, Juan Carlos Vera explains his side of the story.
"See the video complete, ask to see the video complete," cried Juan Carlos Vera. "And you can see what happened."
Flanked by two others associated with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, Juan Carlos Vera told the people crowded inro the tiny ACORN office that because of a language barrier, the people seen in the video were able to easily confuse him. In broken english, he said the pair came to his office asking about housing. Vera said the man explained to him that the woman was a prostitute, and he was trying to get her away from her pimp.
"The skinny guy told me I want to buy a house because, this is what happened, this is my girlfriend," Vera said. "And her pimp, they don't want to let her go."
As the video shows the couple began asking Vera about smuggling girls across the border. But Vera said he was only trying to help the pair, who he said told him they needed to get some young women out of Mexico. Vera said he offered to call his cousin, a National City Police officer, but the couple turned down the offer.
"I say okay, I can help you. We can, I don't know call the police. And when they start the video I say that," Vera said. "Put the video completely and I say that."
Throughout his rescitation of what happended, Vera proclaimed his innocence. About the snippet of video that shows him asking how much the woman charges for her services, Vera said.
"The lady say you wanna know how much I charge, you wanna know? Yeah, how much do you charge? And the guy say, you want something from my girlfriend? And I say no, no. I'm just curious, that's it," Vera said. "And they don't put that in the video, they don't put that. These people left and when they left, I have a cousin that's police and I call."
During the interview, ACORN's David Lagstein said his organization continued to support Vera.
"We"ve concluded that he did his best to deal with a bizarre and challenging situation," Lagstein said. "His intent was to help people that he thought were in danger. After the incident he called his cousin who works for the National City Police department and expressed concern about this interaction."
But that support was quickly pulled away. A few hours after Vera explained his side of the story, Lagstein issued a statement that read in part, "After release of the second San Diego video by the unscrupulous partisan videographers, we have reevaluated our assessment of the incident that occurred last month. No papwerwork was filed, but the video reflects unacceptable conduct that contradicts the earlier statements of ACORN Organizer Juan Carlos Vera. He has been terminated...."
In the meantime the California Republican Party and the San Diego chapter are calling for the San Diego County Registrar of Voters to conduct a thorough forensic investigtaion into all voter registration cards turned submitted by ACORN. And nationally, the Congressional House voted to cut off all federal funding to the non-profit.
