Did James O’Keefe violate his probation by going to OWS?

A thought occurred to us when we saw reports this afternoon that conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe visited the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City on Monday: isn’t that dude still on probation?

So we looked into it, and according to court records, a judge never approved his trip across the Hudson River and out of the state of New Jersey, where he lives with his parents. A judge has regularly approved all of his trips since he pleaded guilty to entering U.S. property under false pretenses back in May 2010 and received three years probation.

Ryan Girdusky, a spokesman for O’Keefe told TPM that O’Keefe got permission to make the trip from his probation officer. O’Keefe’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a call and an email, and O’Keefe didn’t immediately reply to a tweet asking for clarification. We’ll update if we hear back.