| Moved to Home Front WoT and upgraded to WoT background. This is an intolerable attack on free speech, and a desperate attempt by the Obama administration to divert attention from the terrorist attack that murdered our ambassador in Benghazi. Any other president would have been ruined by this already. There are intelligent folks who point out that Mr. Nakoula may indeed be guilty of a violation of his probation, or even more. Yes, he might -- but the Obama administration used that for what will be seen by many as a pretext to silence speech. Good prosecutors and court officers now will be seen as agents of suppression, and not as impartial enforcers of the law. Thus the current administration continues to corrupt everything it touches. Obama must go. |
The alleged filmmaker behind the video that sparked protests across Moslem countries was juggedDon't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
and tossed in the calaboose
You have the right to remain silent...
without bond Thursday, as a U.S. judge said she feared he would try to flee.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the alleged director/producer of "Innocence of Moslems," appeared in court in Los Angeles after being jugged
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
for breaching the terms of his probation for a 2010 banking fraud conviction.
Prosecutor Robert Dugdale said the 55-year-old had allegedly made eight breaches, including making false statements to probation officers and using at least three different names.
Judge Suzanne Segal ruled that Nakoula, who has been hiding since protests erupted over his film, be tossed in the calabooseYou have the right to remain silent...
without bond, saying he was a flight risk and a danger to the community.
"The court has a lack of trust in this defendant," she said.
Concerns have been raised for Nakoula's safety due to the widespread anger his alleged video has provoked among Moslems, and his hastily-arranged court appearance was held under tight security in downtown LA.
The hearing was closed to the public, but journalists and anyone else interested was allowed to follow proceedings via videoconference from a separate building.
Nakoula -- allegedly the real identity behind the pseudonym Sam Bacile, listed as the director of "Innocence of Moslems" -- was briefly taken into custody earlier this month for questioning by his probation officer.
He was traced to a home address in Cerritos, south of Los Angeles, after international protests erupted against the 14-minute trailer video posted online.The film depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a thuggish deviant offended many Moslems, and sparked a wave of anti-American protests that have cost several lives and saw mobs set U.S. missions, schools and businesses ablaze.
In February 2009, a federal indictment accused Nakoula and others of fraudulently obtaining the identities and Social Security numbers of customers at several Wells Fargo branches in Caliphornia and withdrawing $860 from them.
Nakoula's court appearance came a day after an actress involved in the video, Cindy Lee Garcia, filed a second lawsuit seeking to force YouTube and Google...contributed $814,540 to the 2008 Obama campaign...
to pull the video trailer.
Garcia filed legal action in Los Angeles Superior Court last week, but a judge rejected it -- and on Wednesday, she filed a new suit alleging breach of copyright in federal court in Santa Clarita, Caliphornia.
The actress says she had believed to have signed up for a film called "Desert Warrior" set 2,000 years ago, and only realized her lines had been over-dubbed when the row with Moslem protests erupted this month.
In her initial lawsuit, Garcia alleged she has suffered severe emotional distress, financial setbacks and the "destruction of her career and reputation."
But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Luis Lavin denied her request for a restraining order to prevent YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, from continuing to show the film clips.
The English version of the trailer, which has been withdrawn from YouTube in a number of countries, includes blatantly overdubbed parts of dialogue, and Mohammed's name seems to have been added in post-production.
Garcia said she only saw four pages of script for the two days she spent on set, and had no idea about the movie's religious content. "No one spoke of the Moslem faith, no one spoke of Mohammed. Nor would I do that," she said.