Update: The Real 'Sam Bacile' Exposed--As a Meth Cooker

UPDATE 6:00 p.m.  The Daily Beast carried an amazing story earlier today on filmmaker Nakoula, with some fresh details, including that alleged screening of his film at a Hollywood theater.  Police had been tipped off their might be trouble and kept him under surveillance as he sat in a nearby eatery awaiting the crowd to gather--as it turned out, less than a dozen showed up.

Now there's this:  He was arrested and convicted as a meth cooker back in 1997.    Also: He was once a Democrat but changed his registration in 2008 to American Independent.

L.A. Times with even more details and a key role played by another man, who also hails from Egypt. 

This morning:  A U.S. official source has just confirmed AP's reporting: "Bacile" is "Nakoula."  And see my new piece at The Nation on the "massive media fail" in early reporting on all this--and its consequences.

Yesterday, a wild day or reporting, rumor, slander and speculation (see my earlier post)  ended with this fine piece of reporting by the AP, which seems to have cracked the mystery of the nut behind the anti-Islam video that helped trigger rioting in Egypt and Libya.  The "Israeli" film director "Sam Bacile" turns out, it seems, to be a miitant Christian named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula  (check out that middle name) from Cerritos, CA., with a sordid background.  AP story describes how they IDed.  Plus:

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Leigh Williams said Nakoula set up fraudulent bank accounts using stolen identities and Social Security numbers, then checks from those accounts would be deposited into other bogus accounts from which Nakoula would withdraw money at ATM machines.

It was "basically a check-kiting scheme," the prosecutor told the AP. "You try to get the money out of the bank before the bank realizes they are drawn from a fraudulent account. There basically is no money."

The actors in the film issued a joint statement Wednesday saying they were misled about the project and said some of their dialogue was crudely dubbed during post-production.