In the New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial “Gov. Christie shouldn’t cozy up to muckraker of ‘Teachers Union Gone Wild’” published today, October 29, 2010, the editorial board falsely reported that James O’Keefe plead guilty to “tampering” with phones in the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu:
O’Keefe, who grew up in Bergen County and attended Rutgers, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after he was caught tampering with the phones of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu during another “investigative” assignment.
O’Keefe and company pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of entering federal property under false pretenses. According to the Government’s own Factual Basis, the government found no “evidence that the defendants intended to commit any felony after the entry by false pretenses,” and the “defendants misrepresented themselves and their purpose to orchestrate a conversation about phone calls to the Senator’s staff and capture the conversation on video, not to actually tamper with the phone system, or to commit any other felony.”
We respectfully ask the New Jersey Star-Ledger to issue a correction.
At this point, it’s also worth noting that the New Jersey Star-Ledger has demonstrated a pattern of reporting false facts to to tarnish the reputation of James O’Keefe. In February, the Star-Ledger inaccurately reported “Fake ACORN Pimp Tied To White Supremacists,” which was disproved in this space here and here. In May, four months after the Landrieu incident occurred, the Star-Ledger erroneously reported O’Keefe “attempt[ed] to wiretap” the phones in Sen. Landrieu’s office; in this instance, the Star-Ledger stealth-corrected the report but failed to issue a correction update.
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