A thought occurred to us when we saw reports this afternoon that conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe visited the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City: isn’t that dude still on probation?
So we looked into it, and according to court records, a judge never approved his trip across the Hudson River and out of the state of New Jersey, where he lives with his parents. A judge has regularly approved all of his trips since he pleaded guilty to entering U.S. property under false pretenses back in May 2010 and received three years probation.
Ryan Girdusky, a spokesman for O’Keefe told TPM that O’Keefe got permission to make the trip from his probation officer. O’Keefe’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a call and an email, and O’Keefe didn’t immediately reply to a tweet asking for clarification. We’ll update if we hear back.
O’Keefe’s last judicially approved trip was a journey to Little Rock, Arkansas for a speech before Americans for Prosperity that was scheduled to take place from Sept. 27-30. Other recent trips include a visit Nashua, NH and Portland, ME from Sept. 16 to Sept. 18, (both times for Americans for Prosperity speeches). A judge also approved a trip to Washington, DC from Aug. 2-4, where O’Keefe gave a presentation to conservative students and a visit Seattle from Aug. 23-26, where he spoke to members of the State Policy Network, a national group of market-oriented think tanks.
Brian Fung contributed to this report.
[Late update: Gawker’s John Cook reports he couldn’t get in touch with the U.S. Probation Office in New Jersey. Late, late update: O’Keefe tweets: “Can’t take your calls, journalists. Busy producing a video.”]
