ACORN is a community organizing group that traditionally conducts voter-registration drives, and lobbies for more affordable housing and increases in the minimum wage.
Last year, O'Keefe and Giles visited several ACORN offices across the country as part of an independent sting operation. At each stop, they asked employees for help in setting up a brothel that they said would use underage girls smuggled from El Salvador.
At offices in Baltimore and Washington, employees allegedly counseled the couple on how to set up the business, launder money, and avoid detection.
The resulting videos - widely disseminated on the Internet, and reported on by news outlets - caused a storm of controversy. Congress pulled federal funding from the organization, the IRS severed its partnership with ACORN as a volunteer income-tax assistance site, and President Obama, who once represented the group as a young lawyer, said it deserved to be investigated.
O'Keefe and Giles could not be reached yesterday. O'Keefe, of New Jersey, has maintained that the sting was not intended to push a political agenda.
In December, the Associated Press reported that O'Keefe worked for a conservative public policy group called the Leadership Institute before embarking on the video series. Giles, of Florida, spent a summer as an intern for the National Journalism Center, a training organization whose alumni include the conservative commentator Ann Coulter.
On July 24, the duo dropped in at ACORN's office at Broad and Parrish Streets.
According to the suit, O'Keefe first tried to make an appointment for advice about running an election campaign. When he was rebuffed, O'Keefe then asked for help on a mortgage issue. Again, he was refused an appointment.
Minutes later, the suit says, O'Keefe and Giles arrived asking for housing and mortgage advice.
