Monday, November 11, 2013

United Pacific Studios served as a film set and an assumed front for the federal government's probe of state Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello

LA Film Studio Was Cover For FBI Sting, According To Federal Affidavit
Los Angeles Daily News  |  By Dakota SmithPosted: 
United Pacific Studios worked out of a nondescript, white-colored low-rise warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, offering a cavernous space for film shoots. Among Hollywood types, the studio space was known as a low-budget place for martial arts flicks or network shows.
The studio was also an apparent cover for an FBI sting. Located steps from the condo conversions and trendy cafes of the Arts District, United Pacific Studios served as a film set and an assumed front for the federal government's probe of state Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello.
While some media reports have described the company as a fake business, similar to the film "Argo," United Pacific Studios was a functioning production house at least since 2007, according to online records, friends and business associates. Executives at companies ranging from San Fernando Valley prop houses to film festivals worked or knew of United Pacific Studios, and news of the FBI investigation left many puzzled this week.
"They had pretty good rates as far as studios," said Ricardo Ramirez, a director who lives in La Habra Heights. "They did B films, indies."
A federal affidavit released last week by the Al Jazeera cable news network details how an undercover agent posed as a studio head, offering bribes to Calderon in return for new film tax laws that would benefit the studio. It's believed the agent went by the name Rocky Patel, and worked at United Pacific Studios.
Federal agents raided Calderon's Sacramento office in June, but until the release of the affidavit, it was unclear why the FBI was investigating the Montebello politician.
Calderon has not been charged, and his attorney has publicly dismissed the affidavit.
United Pacific Studios' owners are Crystal Wortman and Lorenzo Bavadi, friends say. Wortman told the Daily News she was out of town and unavailable for comment. Bavadi didn't return calls this week.
Wortman told KCBS (Channel 2)last week that a man calling himself Patel approached the studio several years ago. He brought in so much revenue that he was made president, she said. Wortman said Patel left the studio in early summer, saying he had a family issue. His departure came at around the same time as the Sacramento raid.
United Pacific Studios has had various locations around downtown, records show. One of its recent studio spaces was on 4th Street in the Arts District.
Pamela Armstrong, a producer at Universal City-based 33 Entertainment Group, is friends with the owners of United Pacific Studios, she said. Reached Thursday, she sounded mystified when told of the news stories. "They do a lot of studio rentals," Armstrong said. "They also did their own independent projects."
She also said Wortman recently sold a television pilot.
The company last year teamed with 33 Entertainment Group, to produce a web series, "Velvet Prozak." The series chronicles the life of a young Midwest man who moves to Los Angeles. "Outstanding!! I am hooked! TOO FUNNY!" wrote one YouTube viewer.
Ramirez shot a film "Double Tap," a thriller about an ex-cop whose wife is murdered, at United Pacific Studios in 2008-2009, he said. He also shot music videos at the studio as recently as 2011.
Greg Pritikin, a director who worked with United Pacific Studios to make the 2011 TV movie "Monster of the House," said the production company's former building was the perfect location for B movies and horror films, with multiple spaces and a "dang scary" basement.
"It was an industrial building with many, many rooms," he said. "Each room was kind of its own dirty cove of a set. You could build a classroom or a police precinct, whatever would fit."
Pritikin said he never met anyone there named Rocky Patel and had no reason to believe United Pacific Studios wasn't a real operation.
"I know for a fact that many legitimate productions used that space," he said. "It was an operational business just because of the sheer amount of people that shot there."
Henry Priest, who runs the Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles, met Patel in 2011 at downtown restaurant Perch, a spot known for its moneyed crowd and expansive roof deck. In an interview this week, Priest said the company was real. He dismissed any notion the studio was a front and churning out films just as a way for the FBI to conduct its sting.
"Lorenzo was bringing legitimate business to the studio," Priest said. "Knowing Lorenzo, they had been working on so many productions... I don't think he would have put this whole thing riding on the FBI."
United Pacific Studios was a sponsor in the downtown L.A. film festival in 2011, Priest said. Additionally interns from the festival worked on a 2009 production at Union Pacific Studios, Priest said.
According to the affidavit, the FBI sting involved at least three agents connected to the film company. There was the fake movie executive working with Calderon, as well as an agent posing as an investor in United Pacific Studios. Another official at the movie studio was also in on the sting, federal documents state.
Today, the company's status is unclear. United Pacific Studios is now located on Hill Street, near Angels Flight funicular, friends say, but it's not clear it still has an operating studio.
Its Arts District space was vacated around August, said Tim Krehbiel, owner of a nearby property.
Luo Enterprise, a toy company, moved in this summer. On one recent day, cardboard boxes of orange and pink-colored plush toys filled the former studio.
Staff Writer Brenda Gazzar contributed to this report. ___
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Richard Shoop, New Jersey Mall Shooting Suspect, Didn't Want To Hurt Anyone: Authorities


By SAMANTHA HENRY 11/05/13 12:17 PM ET EST AP
Richard Shoop
PARAMUS, N.J. -- PARAMUS, N.J. (AP) — The brother of a man who police say killed himself after firing several shots inside a New Jersey mall says he's not sure what led to his brother's actions.
Kevin Shoop says his brother, 20-year-old Richard Shoop of Teaneck, acted in a selfish manner.
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Yellow Dogs shooting: US-Iranian band members killed in NY

Members of the Yellow Dogs, (L-R) Soroush Farazmand, Koory Mirz, Siavash Karampour and Arash Farazmand are shown at The Gutter bowling alley in Williamsburg neighbourhood in New York in 2011 Soroush Farazmand (far left) and his brother, Arash Farazmand (far right), were killed in the attack
Four Iranian-expatriate musicians living in Brooklyn, New York, have been shot dead in what authorities are labelling a murder-suicide.
Two members of the group Yellow Dogs and a third artist were slain by a fellow musician, Ali Akbar Mahammadi Rafie, who later took his own life.
Police believe the attack happened as Rafie, 29, was upset after being thrown out of another band.
Two of those killed had just received political asylum in the US.
They were brothers and members of the Yellow Dogs, who described themselves on their Twitter feed as "a Post Punk/Dance Punk band from Tehran/Iran, living in Brooklyn at the moment".
'Petty conflict'
Gunfire rang out early on Monday as Rafie climbed from the roof on to a third-floor terrace where he opened fire through a window, shooting dead Ali Eskandarian, 35, a musician, said police.
Drummer Arash Farazmand of indie band the Yellow Dogs performs at the Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg neighbourhood in New York on 11 November 2011 Drummer Arash Farazmand was found dead on the apartment's third floor
Arash Farazmand, 28, the Yellow Dogs drummer, was found dead on the same level of the apartment.
His brother, Soroush Farazmand, 27, the band's guitarist, was using his laptop in bed when he received fatal gunshot injuries.
The Yellow Dogs' two other members were not at the flat at the time of the killing.
According to police, another unidentified tenant was hit in the arm as Rafie and a former fellow band mate from a group called the Free Keys struggled over the gun.
Rafie retrieved ammunition that had fallen out of the firearm, went to the roof and shot himself in the head, said police.
The person wounded in the arm was taken to hospital and is said to be in stable condition.
Rafie "was upset that he wasn't in the band anymore", said New York Police Department spokesman John McCarthy.
Investigators believe the gunman and his former Free Keys members, may have had an argument over money, but it was unclear why he shot at members of the Yellow Dogs.
The rifle was found next to Rafie's body, according to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.
He said it had been purchased in New York state in 2006, and police were tracking its history.
Police are investigating whether a guitar case found near the scene was used to carry the assault rifle in the attack.
The Yellow Dogs were well-known among young Iranian expatriates in the US, reports Bahman Kalbasi of the BBC Persian service.
Ali Salehezadeh, the band's manager, said the gunman knew the victims but had not spoken to them in months because of a "petty conflict".
"There was a decision not to be around each other," he said. "They were never that close to begin with. We thought it was all behind us."
Relatives 'stunned'
The shooting took place in Brooklyn's East Williamsburg neighbourhood, known for its edgy, creative vibe and community of artists and musicians. The band members had lived in the neighbourhood.
Crime scene personnel work at a crime scene in the Brooklyn section of New York, on 11 November 2013Brooklyn's East Williamsburg neighbourhood is known for its edgy, creative vibe and community of artists and musicians
"They seem like really nice guys," a local man, Martin Greenman, told the New York Daily News.
"They didn't seem to be in any way to be violent guys. They weren't rabble rousers or anything like that."
Mr Salehezadeh said the victims' relatives were stunned.
"People don't own guns in Iran," he said. "We don't have this problem there. It doesn't exist."
Members of an Iranian band with the same name were interviewed by US consulate officials in Istanbul in 2009 as they applied for a visa for a US tour, according to a diplomatic cable leaked to Wikileaks.
They described the "small but crazy" underground rock scene in Tehran, saying it was the community that offered "the most free expression" in Iran.

Friday, November 8, 2013

3:09 PM 11/8/2013: Kerry to Geneva as Iran Talks Continue | Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu strongly criticises and rejects Iran's historic breakthrough deal in Geneva over its nuclear plans | Accounts Differ to FBI and CBS on Benghazi - New York Times | UK Intelligence Chiefs - Open Testimony | EU to create “European Intelligence Service | Religion, Contraception and Bosses’ Rights - 11/8/2013 - By THE EDITORIAL BOARD - NYT

Published on Nov 8, 2013


Subscribe to the Guardian HERE: http://bitly.com/UvkFpD
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu strongly criticises and rejects Iran's historic breakthrough deal in Geneva over its nuclear plans. He says the rival state got the 'deal of the century', but it is a 'very bad deal' for the international community. Netanyahu's criticism of the negotiations with Iran in Geneva comes ahead of the Israeli PM's meeting with the US secretary of state on Friday, representing the third meeting with John Kerry in barely 48 hours.
Click for the full Guardian article:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/vide...




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Camille Saint-Saëns - Danse Macabre


Danse Macabre Camille Saint-Saëns 1980s cartoon, PBS, Halloween,

Uploaded on Oct 4, 2009
This originally aired on PBS in the 1980s featuring a poorly made up vampire host to introduce and discuss.
It was also shown to me when I was in elementary school. One of the best short length Halloween animations ever created. Terrific illustrations.

About the song: Danse macabre, by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, was an art song for voice and piano (first performed in 1872) with a French text by the poet Henri Cazalis which is based in an old French superstition. Two years later, the composer expanded and reworked the piece into a tone poem for orchestra, replacing the vocal line with a solo violin. The rest, they say, is history.