ACORN Colorado defunct, still drawing donations

DENVER - Dan Bishop figured that when scandal-plagued ACORN went out of business it would stop deducting donations from his bank account. He was wrong.



"They supposedly shut down several months ago," Bishop said. "I just assumed they would stop taking money."

9Wants to Know has learned donations are still being collected for ACORN Colorado, the local branch of the liberal advocacy group.

Bishop says he signed up for automatic monthly payments several years ago, payments that continued being withdrawn after ACORN's collapse.

ACORN closed state offices across the country after public backlash and a loss of government funding following the posting of a video on a conservative website that appeared to show ACORN employees advising a couple, posing as a pimp and a prostitute, on how to disguise their work for tax purposes.

The organization had previously been criticized over allegations of voter fraud.

The Colorado office is closed, its phone is disconnected and it filed paperwork with the Secretary of State on April 15 saying it was going out of business.

The statement of withdrawal says ACORN "will no longer transact business or conduct activities in this state and it relinquishes its authority to transact business or conduct activities in this state."

Phone calls and e-mails to the national offices in Washington, D.C. were not returned.

Bishop is not going to be bankrupted by his $120 annual donations, taken in $10 monthly installments. He says it is the principle of it that bothers him.

"It's not a lot, but it's still annoying to be putting it into this organization that you don't know what they're doing with it," Bishop said. "That sort of tells me that they were the bad organization that they were pointed out to be."

"I would like the money to stop being taken from me so I can give it to somebody else who's actually going to use it properly," he said.

Bishop says he asked his bank to stop payment and was told a six-month hold would cost about $30. Faced with the prospect of paying $120 a year to a defunct organization or $60 a year to his bank to stop the payments, Bishop said he went public to try to get ACORN to stop the automatic debits.

A spokesman for the Colorado Attorney General's office says Bishop's complaint about ACORN was within the purview of the office and any formal complaints would be investigated.

Complaints may be filed by calling the attorney general's office or filling out the online form found at: http://www.coloradoattorneygeneral.gov/ ... _complaint.

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