I reported yesterday that ACORN is under investigation by authorities in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

The probe continues after Darnell Nash, who was registered to vote by ACORN, was indicted by a grand jury yesterday. The indictment is available here.

Ryan Miday, spokesman for Cuyahoga County, Ohio Prosecutor Bill Mason, a Democrat, spoke with me last night. Miday said an “investigation is continuing into activities by ACORN. Darnell Nash is the first we’ve charged in this ongoing investigation.”

“ACORN workers approached him to fill out voter registration cards and he did so on nine different occasions using different names and addresses, then he actually registered and voted on Sept. 30 and voted with a different address and the address was an address here in the Cleveland area in a suburb called Shaker Heights.”

Miday said that the Shaker Heights address is important because the person who actually lives there alerted the authorities after multiple registration acknowledgement documents came in the mail. Nash’s vote was then flagged and Nash came to the attention of the board of elections. It held an administrative board hearing and summoned Nash to appear but he failed to show up for the hearing.

“After the election ACORN had to turn over all its voter registration cards and those amounted to about 70,000,” Miday said. “The sheriff’s office in Cuyahoga County has been going through mounds of paperwork.”

“The activities by ACORN are being looked at. Through the investigation a number of employees of ACORN have been interviewed,” said Miday.

Meanwhile, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) introduced the proposed Taxpayer Protection and Anti-Fraud Act.

The legislation ”would prohibit any organization that has been indicted for violations of state or federal election laws from accessing taxpayer dollars through Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs,” according to a Bachmann press release.

“This is about how Congress spends the people’s money and about setting the bar high.  Accessing federal funding is a privilege, not a right, and it must be earned,” Bachmann said. “Congress should not allow groups, such as ACORN which has been repeatedly investigated and indicted for voter registration fraud, to receive taxpayer dollars. You can’t violate the public trust with one hand and take the taxpayers’ money with the other.”

Bachmann previously tried to block ACORN from receiving federal funds in an amendment to mortgage legislation. House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) agreed to the amendment initially but then a short time later the longtime ACORN defender suddenly changed his mind. The amendment was stripped out of that bill by the House.

Frank even lied to Lou Dobbs on CNN about ACORN and its eligibility for federal funds.

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