Shalom!
'Muslims' Movie Producer Was Arrested for PCP, Snitched for Feds
To: "history_islam@yahoogroups.com" <history_islam@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 9:22 PM
Subject: [ History Islam & Beyond . . .] Fw: California man linked to anti-Islam film taken in for questioning
In first picture, man behind anti-Islam film appears with 'duped' actress
The Daily Mail on Sunday published a photo of filmmaker Nakoula, also known as Sam Bacile, on the set of the amateurish film 'Innocence of Muslims' with actress Anna Gurji, who said she was duped by the 55-year-old director.
"I was playing the youngest bride of a character named George," she said, according to The Daily Mail. "I had no idea George would be changed to Muhammad. I'm locked up in my house. I'm terrified people in the Middle East will blame me."
'I'm Catholic so they might think I have something against Muslims. I'm taking pills to sleep. I've been crying for days. I feel betrayed. My face is stuck on the movie clip. People see that awful film and they see me," Gurji she added.
"I was told I was to be Hilary, the young bride of a character called George,' she said. 'The film was about a comet that falls to Earth in the ancient Middle East. There are different tribes who think the comet is somehow holy and fight over it. There were supposed to be lots of special effects so a lot of the filming was in front of a green screen. It was super low-budget. I was getting $75 [£50] a day and all my scenes were shot with George against the green screen. I had no idea how it would be twisted," the actress was quoted by the Mail as saying.
On Saturday, Nakoula, a Coptic Christian, was voluntarily interviewed by federal probation officers at a sheriff's station in the Los Angeles suburb of Cerritos, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, according to Reuters.
The crudely made 13-minute English-language movie, filmed in California and circulated on the Internet under several titles including "Innocence of Muslims," mocks the Prophet Mohammad and portrays him as a buffoon.
The film helped generate a violent protest at the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi during which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed on Tuesday. U.S. officials said they believe militants used the protest as cover to carry out an armed assault on the diplomatic compound and a building that was supposed to be a safe house.
Protests have spread to other countries across the Muslim world.
For many Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is blasphemous. Caricatures deemed insulting in the past have provoked protests and drawn condemnations from officials, preachers, ordinary Muslims and many Christians.
U.S. officials have said authorities were not investigating the film project itself, and that even if it was inflammatory or led to violence, simply producing it cannot be considered a crime in the United States, which has strong free speech laws.
An attorney for Nakoula did not return phone calls and a representative for the U.S. Probation Office had no comment on the outcome of Nakoula's questioning by officers.
Nakoula was ushered out of his home shortly after midnight and into a waiting car by sheriff's deputies, his face shielded by a scarf, hat and sunglasses.
"He was never put in handcuffs ... It was all voluntary," said Whitmore, who added that Nakoula would not immediately return to his home.
Bank fraud conviction
He was accused of fraudulently opening bank and credit card accounts using Social Security numbers that did not match the names on the applications, a criminal complaint showed. He was released in June 2011 and the film was produced later that summer.
The terms of Nakoula's release restrict him from accessing the Internet or assuming aliases without the approval of his probation officer.
A senior law enforcement official in Washington has indicated the probation investigation relates to whether Nakoula broke one or both of these conditions.
A source with knowledge of the case has said the probation office was looking specifically into Nakoula's possible involvement in making the YouTube film in violation of the terms of his release.
Any probation violation could result in him being sent back to prison, court records showed.
Clips of the film posted on the Internet since July have been attributed to a man by the name of Sam Bacile, which two people linked to the film have said was likely an alias.
A telephone number said to belong to Bacile was given to Reuters by U.S.-based Coptic Christian activist Morris Sadek who said he had promoted the film. That phone number was traced back to a person who shares the Nakoula residence.
To: history_islam@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2012 1:27 PM
Subject: RE: [ History Islam & Beyond . . .] Fw: California man linked to anti-Islam film taken in for questioning
Regards
Subject: [ History Islam & Beyond . . .] Fw: California man linked to anti-Islam film taken in for questioning
California man linked to anti-Islam film taken in for questioning
By Alex Dobuzinskis | Reuters – 1 hr 19 mins ago
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Friday, September 21, 2012
[mukto-mona] Fwd: [ History Islam & Beyond . . .] Movie Producer Was Arrested for PCP, Snitched for Feds
Some information coming out about the producer of the u-tube clip. Check it out. Looks like this guy was a hardened criminal and government informant. Very interesting....
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Updated 6:05 pm.
Before he was involved in the making of a noxious video that provided an excuse for anti-American riots in the Middle East, and before he was convicted of federal bank fraud, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was arrested on charges relating to the making of angel dust.
Court records reviewed by Danger Room show that Nakoula and a co-defendant were brought before the Los Angeles County Superior Courthouse in Downey, California on April 15, 1997. They were charged with possessing the narcotic's chemical precursors with "the intent to manufacture phencyclidine," otherwise known as angel dust or PCP.
In the latest in a series of odd revelations about the man thought to be at center of a viral video, "The Innocence of Muslims," which has been publicly seized upon by people in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia as a reason to attack U.S. embassies. At least four American government employees have been killed during the confrontations. And that's brought enormous scrutiny to Nakoula, an Egyptian immigrant and gas station owner, who has alternatively confirmed and denied a role in the making of "Innocence."
In recent days, we've learned that Nakoula used 14 different aliases — including "P.J. Tobacco" and "Kritbag Difrat" — in a complex check kiting scheme. We've learned that Nakoula was sentenced to 21 months in federal custody for the affair. According to The Smoking Gun, Nakoula was released from the the United States Penitentiary in Lompoc, California in September, 2010. He spent the following nine months in and out of a halfway house in Long Beach. Unnamed officials tell ABC News he wrote the script for the film, which depicts the prophet Muhammad as a thug and a child molester, while in prison.
The punishment was relatively gentle, even though it wasn't Nakoula's first encounter with the law. That's because Nakoula had decided to become a federal informant.
"I am sorry for what happened. Now I know it was wrong. I decide to cooperate with the government to retrieve some of those mistakes," Nakoula told Judge Christina Snyder in June of 2010, according to a sentencing transcript obtained by The Smoking Gun.
The man Nakoula agreed to help the feds catch was Eiad Salameh, the ringleader of the check kiting scheme and "a notorious fraudster who has been tracked for more than a decade by state and federal investigators," the Smoking Gun says. "In his debriefings, Nakoula said he was recruited as a 'runner' by Salameh, who pocketed the majority of money generated by the bank swindles."
Because of the promised help, because of his many ailments (including Hepatitis C and diabetes) and maybe because of a friendly letter from a friend calling Nakoula "a God-fearing man whose first priority is his family," Bakoula was sentenced to just 21 months in prison.
That's in spie of his previous arrests. In August of 1991, he was convicted on two counts of selling watered-down gasoline. And then came the arrest for PCP manufacturing in 1997. A local judge found there was probable cause for the case to continue against Nakoula and a co-defendant, Khaled Yameen Abraham, on August 6th of that year. Nakoula and Abraham were also briefly charged with conspiracy.
Three months later, Abraham was convicted on the PCP charge. Nakoula, on the other hand, was not. Nearly five years later, the case against him was dismissed, for reasons unknown.
According to The Daily Beast, Nakoula and Abraham weren't just attempting to make PCP. The news site claims that the pair were arrested for trying to mass-produce methamphetamine. Nakoula was arrested on March 27, 1997, according to the Beast, with $45,000 in hundreds and twenties in a paper lunch bag on the seat beside him. Abraham's house in Lake Elsinore contained 30 boxes of pseudoephedrine, meth's central ingredient. Another 99 cases were allegedly found at the storage facility. Danger Room hasn't been able to confirm this account. But it's entirely possible that Abraham and Nakoula were simultaneously busted for being both PCP and meth makers.
From: "malaya@yahoo.com" <malaya@yahoo.com>
Monday, 17 September 2012
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a Coptic Christian, on the set of film 'Innocence of Muslims' with actress Anna Gurji. (Nick Stern / The Daily Mail)
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the producer of a film that slanders the Prophet Muhammad sparking violent protests across the Muslim World, has been revealed a day after he was questioned by federal investigators near his home in California.
Gurji, who played the Prophet Muhammad's child bride, said on Saturday she was afraid of reprisals and that she was 'betrayed' by the Egyptian-born director.
Nakoula, whose name has been widely linked to the film in media reports, pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2010 and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, to be followed by five years on supervised probation, court documents showed.
From: Mohamed Sheikh <ma_sheikh@hotmail.com>
The best way to reply to this is not by attacking or killing but to make films showing their priests molesting little boys and girls in churches and enslaving W.Africans ref: ROOTS.Christians killing Christians and Jews in 1st and 2nd WW.List is too long. History is full of blood what these people did to the world.
Dear All,
The man accused of making the offensive film about the Prophet of Islam,
denies that he had anything to do with the making of the film.
Read on.
Sincerely,
Syed-Mohsin Naquvi
======================
An unidentified person (C) is escorted …
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California man convicted of bank fraud was taken in for questioning on Saturday by officers investigating possible probation violations stemming from the making of an anti-Islam film that triggered violent protests in the Muslim world.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, voluntarily left his home in the early hours of Saturday morning for the meeting in a sheriff's station in the Los Angeles suburb of Cerritos, Los Angeles County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said.
"He will be interviewed by federal probation officers," Whitmore said. He said Nakoula had not been placed under arrest but would not be returning home immediately. "He was never put in handcuffs... It was all voluntary."
Nakoula, who has denied involvement in the film in a phone call to his Coptic Christian bishop, was ushered out of his home and into a waiting car by several sheriff's deputies, his face shielded by a scarf, hat and sunglasses.
The crudely made 13-minute English-language film, filmed in California and circulated on the Internet under several titles including "Innocence of Muslims", mocks the Prophet Mohammad.
The film sparked a violent protest at the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi during which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed on Tuesday. Protests have spread to other countries across the Muslim world.
For many Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is blasphemous. Caricatures deemed insulting in the past have provoked protests and drawn condemnations from officials, preachers, ordinary Muslims and many Christians.
U.S. officials have said authorities were not investigating the film project itself, and that even if it was inflammatory or led to violence, simply producing it cannot be considered a crime in the United States, which has strong free speech laws.
Two attorneys visited Nakoula's home hours before he was taken in for questioning. They said they were there to consult with him.
BANK FRAUD CONVICTION
Nakoula, whose name has been widely linked to the film in media reports, pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2010 and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, to be followed by five years on supervised probation, court documents showed.
He was accused of fraudulently opening bank and credit card accounts using Social Security numbers that did not match the names on the applications, a criminal complaint showed. He was released in June 2011, and at least some production on the video was done later that summer.
But the terms of Nakoula's prison release contain behavior stipulations that bar him from accessing the Internet or assuming aliases without the approval of his probation officer.
A senior law enforcement official in Washington has indicated the probation investigation relates to whether he broke one or both of these conditions. Violations could result in him being sent back to prison, court records show.
Clips of the film posted on the Internet since July have been attributed to a man by the name of Sam Bacile, which two people linked to the film have said was likely an alias.
A telephone number said to belong to Bacile, given to Reuters by U.S.-based Coptic Christian activist Morris Sadek who said he had promoted the film, was later traced back to a person who shares the Nakoula residence.
Stan Goldman, a Loyola Law School professor, said whether Nakoula is sent back to jail over potential probation violations linked to the film, such as accessing the Internet, was a subjective decision up to an individual judge.
"Federal judges are gods in their own courtrooms, it varies so much in who they are," he said, noting such a move would be based on his conduct not on the content of the film.
As well as the fraud conviction, Nakoula also pleaded guilty in 1997 to possession with intent to manufacture methamphetamine and was sentenced to a year in jail, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Bret Hartman in Cerritos; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Louise Ireland)
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