Except for some pending legal matters - O'Keefe and Hannah Giles (who posed as a prostitute to O'Keefe's pimp) "are facing a civil suit in a Philadelphia courtroom over their recording of a July, 2009, meeting at the ACORN office in that city," Raw Story recently reported -- O'Keefe was riding high in conservative circles. His future was bright; a host of speaking engagements, more interviews on the Fox News Channel.  

Last week, O'Keefe gave a speech to the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, a libertarian group in New Orleans. The pre-speech promo pointed out that "James has been a pioneer in the use of new media to drive these kinds of important stories. He will discuss the role of new media and show examples of effective investigative reporting."

That was then.

This is now

Now, if convicted, there may actually be some real live pimps in O'Keefe's future.  

On Tuesday, January 26, O'Keefe, along with three others -- Robert Flanagan, the son of acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana William J. Flanagan; Joseph Basel, the founder of The Counterweight, a conservative student paper at the University of Minnesota campus in Morris; and Stan Dai, who served as the editor-in-chief of the GW Patriot at George Washington University -- was arrested by FBI agents for allegedly trying to tamper with the phones in the Louisiana offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

Andrew Breitbart is one conservative that has benefited greatly from O'Keefe's ACORN work. While Republicans and other conservatives are trying to keep themselves at arms length from O'Keefe, Breitbart is urging readers of his BigGovernment.com blog to "wait until the facts are in" before passing judgment on O'Keefe:

"Mainstream Media, ACORN, Media Matters (all the supposed defenders of due process and journalistic ethics) are jumping to conclusions over the arrest today of James O'Keefe, with the clear intention to smear and, if possible, convict O'Keefe and his alleged co-conspirators in the court of public opinion in order to taint the `jury of their peers.' Speculation is rampant, but facts are few. And basic logic suggests that there's much more to this story, since there is so little information."

According to the Washington Spectator's David Weigand, in an interview with veteran conservative Hugh Hewitt, Breitbart admitted to paying O'Keefe "a fair salary" for stories he placed on Breitbart's BigGovernment.com.  
Back in his pre-ACORN-expose days, O'Keefe teamed up with Lila Rose, a fierce anti-abortion activist who heads up a group called Live Action. In 2006, Rose and O'Keefe came up with the idea to infiltrate abortion clinics -- especially the offices of Planned Parenthood - with hidden cameras in attempts to catch Planned Parenthood staffers breaking the law. Both O'Keefe and Rose have acknowledged that they were inspired by the work of Mark Crutcher, the head of an anti-abortion group called Life Dynamics.

For an article I wrote in July 2009, Frederick Clarkson, a long-time researcher into the anti-abortion movement, told me that "Crutcher waged a similar campaign for several years, and while his efforts were much ballyhooed in the conservative press, little ultimately came of it." His "efforts were, however, carried out over the telephone and the conversations were primarily with receptionists. Rose takes the effort farther. Video is far more compelling than recordings of phone calls," Clarkson added.    

O'Keefe was also the founder of the Rutgers Centurian, a conservative magazine published at New Jersey's Rutgers University, whose motto is "veritas vos liberabit," (Latin for "the truth shall set you free.") In his first editorial statement, O'Keefe wrote:

Disguising truth has helped every blood-thirsty tyrant and dictator keep the shackles on humanity throughout history.  Let us rock the foundations of academia and challenge the thrones that have for too long indoctrinated us about our world and the context in which we live. As the Journal of Conservative thought at Rutgers university THE CENTURION will try its hardes to serve to that end.  Turn the page. You may read things you agree with and you may read things that you disagree with. But at least you'll come closer to realizing your own truth, and in the words of Jesus Christ, "The truth shall set you free."

According to a May 2005 piece in Salon, Morton Blackwell's conservative Leadership Institute "gave O'Keefe books on starting a publication, awarded him a $500 'Balance in Media Grant,' and suggested never-fail places on campus to ferret out liberal excess."  

O'Keefe was released on an unsecured bond of $10,000. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.