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Appeals court overturns judge's decision ordering Congress to return ACORN funding
Despite a slew of independent investigations exonerating ACORN of misdeeds, on Friday, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned federal court Judge Nina Gershon's decision that cutting off ACORN's funding punished ACORN without a trial. Gershon had ordered the United States government to restore ACORN's funds.
Congress canceled funding for the controversial group last year in the wake of highly edited, secret-video tapes, appearing to implicate the group in promoting prostitution. They were shown by Fox, CNN and on the blogosphere for several days, around the clock. ACORN employees never prepared tax returns, sign or submitted loan documents, or arranged bank loans. In most of the offices visited by the right wing activists, with their hidden camera, the ACORN staff turned them away, asked them to leave and then reported them to the police. In one case the staff took one of the activists posing as a prostitute to a counseling service for young women threatened by their pimp, the story the "prostitute" told to ACORN's staff to entrap them into saying something stupid.