In the latest ACORN sting video, ACORN organizer Tresa Kaelke says that she killed her allegedly abusive ex-husband and laid some "groundwork" beforehand to cop a self-defense plea and avoid going to jail. But Ben Smith has a statement from the San Bernardino police saying that Kaelke's known former husbands are alive and well:
The San Bernardino Police Department is investigating the claims made regarding the homicide. From the initial investigation conducted, the claims do not appear to be factual. Investigators have been in contact with the involved party's known former husbands, who are alive and well. The investigation is ongoing and anyone with further information is asked to contact the Police Department's Homicide Division at (909) 384-5615.
We'll hopefully know the full story soon enough. But after watching the full hour-long unedited video, I do not buy ACORN's defense that Kaelke was just "playing along" with O'Keefe and Giles. If Kaelke didn't kill her ex-husband, I suspect she was blowing smoke when she said she did. ( And one ex-husband Ronald Kaelke has a restraining order against Tresa Kaelke, so perhaps she was just fantasizing about following through.) Her statement comes after Giles talks about the violence prostitutes face in their line of work, and Kaelke replies about the abuse she took from her ex before she offed him. Watch the video for yourself. Of course, whether or not Kaelke committed murder does not add or detract much from the unbelievable story that O'Keefe and Giles have already unearthed at multiple ACORN offices around the country: ACORN employees willing to give advice on how to avoid paying taxes on a brothel filled with minors imported from overseas. As Ben Smith notes, even if Kaelke was joking in this particular instance, "This does not, however, explain the Baltimore and Washington ACORN offices' willingness to offer advice on criminality; indeed, the group fired them." This story is, as they say, developing.