Protest Organizer Paid Demonstrators at D.C. Rally

A protest organizer says he paid people to demonstrate with the Occupy Wall Street-offshoot rally held Thursday in Washington, D.C.

But he also says the demonstrators wanted to be there, and he was merely compensating them for their time.

"If you think I'm going to ask impoverished Latinos out of work, and out of luck, to parade for four hours under a broiling sun ... think again," Jim McGrath, chairman of the D.C. Tenants Advocacy Coalition, told FoxNews.com.

McGrath was responding to claims first made in the Daily Caller. According to the Daily Caller, about 10 Hispanic protesters were seen marching behind a protest organizer on Thursday, some holding signs in English. The report said they gave conflicting accounts about why they were there but that the protest organizer conceded some of them were not volunteers.

McGrath, who was apparently the organizer interviewed for the piece, told FoxNews.com the claim was "100 percent inaccurate."

"They were volunteers. We don't have anything other than volunteers," he said.

He nevertheless made the distinction that he paid the apparent volunteer workers out of his own pocket, because he wanted to compensate them.

The Occupy D.C. protest was one of dozens held across the country, in connection with the central protest now in its third week near Wall Street in New York.

The DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition has not returned a request for comment.