Hey, Hon!

No need to apologize to Baltimore. Regardless of the Nation's Capital's problems, the Charm City is still like school on Saturday. No class.

Your Volgi is partially correct. ACORN's tutorials on how to run a stable of prostitutes financed by government loans while cheating on your taxes is criminal, though likely not under RICO. RICO would require the criminal to have engaged in racketeering activities (more than one) to use the proceeds derived from that activity to control an enterprise engaged in interstate commerce. 18 USC § 1962(a). Racketeering activities do include slavery and sexual exploitation of children. 18 USC § 1961(1). Arguably, the ACORN workers on tape did agree to assist in setting up a house of prostitution for using underage foreigners. This may suffice to meet the first part of the test, as there were at least two instances of it. But 'Puter's not certain that there were proceeds derived from these activities (helping hands for hos) that were used to acquire control of an interstate enterprise. ACORN is clearly an interstate enterprise, though. One would have to argue that the funds derived from the illegal activity were the government funds meant to be used for counseling the poor, and that these funds were used to acquire or control ACORN. 'Puter thinks that's a rough case to make. And relatively unsympathetic.

Like Judge Napolitano, 'Puter would indict for criminal facilitation, then try to dig up sufficient dirt to make a RICO case. Criminal facilitation is a crime by which one person assists another in planning or preparing to commit a crime. The crime is the assistance, not the act committed by the other person. It's also likely theft of federal grant money, assuming this ACORN program was funded in any part with federal money.

The sad thing is, the Obama Administration and Congress could shut this fiasco down now by refusing to fund ACORN at all. ACORN would wither up and die. Of course, one community organizer is not going to cut off the lifeblood of another community organizer. It's just not done.