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November 3, 2010
Acorn files for bankruptcy
Among the controversial community-organizing group's biggest creditors: Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, owed $1 million for a 2009 loan.
Crain's NY Business
by Daniel Massey
Beleaguered community organizing group Acorn filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Tuesday, marking the end of a tumultuous two-year period in which attacks by conservatives and its own missteps proved too much to overcome.
In a statement on Acorn's website, Chief Executive Bertha Lewis said she saw the end “coming for some time,” and blamed the group's downfall on “a political onslaught” that caused the organization “irreparable harm." Acorn had become a GOP target by registering 3 million voters in swing states that turned blue in the 2008 presidential race. But it also made blunders of its own, including shoddy record-keeping and its founder's cover-up of his brother's $1 million embezzlement from the organization.
...Seven different Acorn entities made Chapter 7 filings Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Brooklyn. In the main filing, the group listed a little over $4 million in liabilities, including $1 million owed to Forest City Ratner, the developer of the Atlantic Yards mega project. Forest City had lent Acorn the money in 2009, after Ms. Lewis took over the national organization.
Posted by eric at November 3, 2010 4:21 PM