Find Method Empty Array - php

Question

I have an application with a third party plugin that handles ACL management, works fine, but I am having some issues with a isAuthorized function. The user is being passed into the function and when I debug the variable I can see all of the correct information in the dataset, but when the script executes the find query it returns empty. Here is the thing, the model I am executing the query on is apart of the plugin I am using. So I am executing a find within my application on a model that lies within my plugin. To me it isn't ideal, nonetheless I am working with a plugin that wasn't built application specific. In order to execute the find the Author added
App::uses('User', 'AuthAcl.Model');
so the find could be possible. Now that said, I tweaked one thing in the conditions part of the statement because I was getting Column 'id' in field list is ambiguous error from SQL. I started to get that error because I added some relationships to the application.
I say all that to say this - since I am loading the model via App Uses shouldn't I be able to execute a find like so
$this->User->Find('First');
I have tried that and it says I'm executing on a non object. Here is the code for that script. I need input. When I execute my script without debugging it locks me out the application, and by reading the code and debugging it I think this happens because the find is returning empty. And on another note - please bear with me - I didn't write this code, and I am in the phase of learning to understand other developers code. I am using CAKEPHP 2.3 Thanks guys!
public function isAuthorized($user = null) {
App::uses('User', 'AuthAcl.Model');
App::uses('Group', 'AuthAcl.Model');
$authFlag = false;
$this->set('login_user',$user);
$userModel = new User();
$group = new Group();
//die(debug($user));
$rs = $this->$userModel->find('first',array('conditions'=>array('user.id' => $user['id'])));
die(debug($rs));
$action = 'controllers';
if (!empty($this->plugin)){
$action .= '/'.$this->plugin;
}
$action .= '/'.$this->name;
$action .= '/'.$this->action;
if (!empty($rs['Group'])){
foreach ($rs['Group'] as $group){
$authFlag = $this->Acl->check(array('Group' => array('id' => $group['id'])), $action);
if ($authFlag == true){
break;
}
}
}
if ($authFlag == false && !empty($user)){
$authFlag = $this->Acl->check(array('User' => array('id' => $user['id'])), $action);
//die(debug($authFlag));
}
if ($authFlag == false && !empty($user)){
$this->redirect(array('controller' => 'accessDenied', 'action' => 'index','plugin' =>'auth_acl'));
}
if (!empty($user)){
$user = $userModel->find('first',array('conditions' => array('user.id' => $user['id'])));
$this->Session->write('auth_user',$user);
$this->request->data['auth_plugin'] = $this->plugin;
$this->request->data['auth_controller'] = $this->name;
$this->request->data['auth_action'] = $this->action;
}
return $authFlag;
}
}