WASHINGTON In July 2015, 28-year-old Kohl Peifer logged onto CNN.com and noticed a breaking story: Man behind Planned Parenthood videos speaks out .

The interview featured David Daleiden, the anti-abortion activist whose organization, the Center for Medical Progress, had recently released undercover videos targeting the womens health care provider.

To Peifer, a Los Angeles native working as a design director for a marketing firm, Daleiden was familiar for another reason: The then-26-year-old had been crashing on Peifers couch.

Daleiden and his colleague, Sandra Merritt, now face 15 felony counts in California connected to their work on the sting videos, which purported to show Planned Parenthood employees illegally planning to profit from fetal tissue. Merritt allegedly helped with the recordings.

The charges specifically relate to recording confidential communications without consent, not to any editing. Daleiden whose legal team declined to comment for this story has claimed the charges are fake news, and noted that other charges in Texas were dropped .

At least some of the released footage was misleadingly edited , and a dozen state investigations into Planned Parenthood did not find that the organization was profiting off fetal tissue, which its patients may choose to donate for research. (Planned Parenthood stopped recovering reimbursements for expenses related to its donation program after the videos came out.)

But Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress, the 501(c)3 nonprofit he started in 2013 , captured national attention anyway.

Even as Californias investigation unfolded, Republican lawmakers cited the discredited videos to attack Planned Parenthood and suggest it should be defunded one as recently as February this year. Daleiden ran the conservative cable circuit. And at some point between 2015 and 2016, CMP hired Kellyanne Conway who is currently White House counselor for consulting services. Conway received more than $5,000 from CMP, according to recent financial disclosures released by the Office of Government Ethics.

Yet search warrant documents from the California Justice Department obtained by The Huffington Post and interviews with Peifer, who assisted investigators suggest that CMPs operation was less legitimate than the groups national profile made it appear. And they raise questions as to why big-name GOPers were so quick to jump on board.