Smoking Gun: Producer of Anti-Islam Film Was Fed Snitch [View all]

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http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/investigation/nakoula-cooperation-756920

SEPTEMBER 14, 2012
DOCUMENT: Crime
Producer Of Anti-Islam Film Was Fed Snitch
L.A. man began cooperating with prosecutors after 2009 fraud bust

SEPTEMBER 14--In remarks stressing that the U.S. government had “absolutely nothing to do with” the anti-Islam film that has touched off violence in the Middle East, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday sought to quash Arab concerns that the “disgusting and reprehensible” movie was somehow produced or condoned by American officials.

However, Clinton’s attempt to distance the U.S. from “Innocence of Muslims”--and, by extension, its felonious producer--may be complicated by the revelation that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula became a government informant after his 2009 arrest for bank fraud, The Smoking Gun has learned.

Though many key documents from the U.S. District Court case remain sealed, a June 2010 sentencing transcript provides an account of Nakoula’s cooperation with federal investigators in Los Angeles (and how his prison sentence was reduced as a result).

Nakoula, 55, was arrested in June 2009 for his role in a check-kiting ring that stole nearly $800,000 from six financial institutions by using stolen Social Security numbers and identities.  Nakoula was named in a six-count felony indictment accusing him and unnamed “co-schemers” of perpetrating the bank fraud.

Denied bail, Nakoula, a married father of three, was locked up at the Metropolitan Detention Center in L.A. when he began cooperating with Justice Department lawyers and federal agents. During a series of debriefing sessions, Nakoula provided investigators with a detailed account of the fraud operation and fingered the man who allegedly headed the operation, according to comments made by his lawyer at sentencing.

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