Wp_Query dates before xxxx-xx-xx

I’m trying to create a loop of posts of the current author that are dated on or before the current page’s published date.

My query params:

$query = array(
		'posts_per_page' => 3, //number of results
		'author' => $post->post_author, //only this author
		'post__not_in' => array($post->ID), //NOT this post
		'cat' => '513,517,1151,8690', //from this category
		'post_type' => 'post', //only posts
		'dated_before' => '2010-01-01' //DESIRED QUERY PARAMETER
	);

Here is the posts_where filter that I’m attempting to use:

function dg_dated_before($where)
{
    global $wp_query;

    if ($wp_query->query_vars['dated_before']):
        $where = $where . " AND posts.post_date <= '". $wp_query->query_vars['dated_before'] . "' " ;
    endif;

    return $where ;
}

add_filter('posts_where', 'dg_dated_before') ;

But obviously, it doesn’t work, else I wouldn’t post it here ??

Thoughts?