You remember Nakoula - he's Sam Bacile, one of the guys--if not the guy--behind "Innoncence of Muslims", the fraudulent movie about Mohammed that is alleged to have sparked the riot in Bakoula that led to the deaths of four American embassy personnel.
We've already seen that Bacile misled the cast of the movie about what kind of movie it was going to be.
In a statement issued to multiple outlets from the film’s cast and crew, they said were “shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were told to all involved.” No specific representative was named in the statement, however. Most of the dialogue that relates to Islam or religion in the trailer looks like it was overdubbed in post-production, with many suggesting that the dialogue was translated with words something completely different to lines delivered.
Bacile--sorry, Nakoula--also makde the movie without the knowledge of the movie industry:
A representative for the California Film Commission said that no filming permits were given to Bacile or Klein, or anything related to the film’s title. While it seems the film may have been shot in large part via green screen, filming in any public place requires a permit, and it is hard to imagine that the 45-person crew – along with 60 actors as “Bacile” told the press – could have gone completely unnoticed over the three-month period. Neither the film, nor its supposed filmmaker, has a presence on leading film database IMDB. And nobody in the film industry we talked to had any knowledge of it, nor did they recognize any of the actors in it.
But this isn't his first brush with the law; Nakoula has recently
served 21 months in prison and paid out $794,700 for bank fraud in 2010.
All in all, a guy not averse to fraud. Any protestations by him that he's sorry for the deaths in Libya shoudl be given little weight; fraudsters very intimately know the object of their fraud. This particular movie fraud was designed to provoke and inflame.
A big remaining question is whether Nakoula largely acted alone in this venture, or whether he was the catspaw of wealthy "investors" (in the same way that Sheldon Adelson is an "investor" in Mitt Romney's campaign), or other political operatives. The $5 million he claims to have gotten to make the film had to have come from somewhere.
UPDATE: Go check out Panglozz' diary on the network behind Nakoula.