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EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
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EXCLUSIVE
Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast

When George Bosque stole $1.85 million and went on the lam, he
invented a new identity—as a movie producer with bags of cash
and a dream to film a Roman-themed porn orgy.
Ashley West and April Hall
. . : PM ET

1
981: Nyack, NY
It’s fall in a muddy field 35 miles
north of New York City, but it feels
more like the middle of winter.
Especially to the men standing
around shivering in short Roman togas and
sandals.

Advertisement
 JOIN

JOIN x

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
MY ACCOUNT
LOG OUT They’ve been up since 6 am for an unfeasible
activity: They’re filming scenes for an unnamed

gay pornographic film set in ancient Rome,

which will feature a crowd of first-time actors
culled from a variety of Manhattan bath houses
and sex clubs. And it’s freezing cold.

Is it any surprise that nerves are frayed?

George Payne, Scorpio

At the heart of the confusion, an intense

discussion is taking place between three men.
ADVERTISEMENT

Advertisement
 JOIN

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EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
MY ACCOUNT Socks to Relieve Pain
LOG OUT New sock is helping millions of seniors turn
back the clock on their aging, aching feet.
socksoothers.com

There’s the film’s director, Chris Covino.

Christopher John Covino to his family. Or John
Christopher to the adult film world.

Then there’s Wilbur Weiss Jr., one of the film’s

lead actors, a Jersey pretty boy, ex-male stripper
whose mother makes his dancing costumes, and
who understandably prefers to be referred to as
‘Scorpio’.

And there’s George, the film’s financier.

Producer, if you will.

ADVERTISING

George doesn’t have a second name. At least, no

one knows what it is. Or where he comes from.
Not even Chris Covino, who brought George on
board, knows much about him. Normally that
would be a red flag in the semi-legal, grey area
in which porno filmmakers operate, but when a
money-man has handed you a suitcase of cash to
make a movie, and drives you to the film set
each day in a stretch limo, do you really need to
ask any questions?
 This is the fourth day of shooting and there’s still
JOIN
no end in sight. Chris is an experienced director.
JOIN x
He sent out the shooting scripts weeks ago—but
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT now that they’re on set, the mysterious, Cecil B.
DeMille-wannabe George has different ideas and
MY ACCOUNT
throws out new suggestions every few minutes.
LOG OUT
This bugs Scorpio. He’s learned all his lines in
advance, and hates the number of changes he

has to deal with. Chris agrees with him, but is

trying to be the diplomat, reluctant to jeopardize
his film’s substantial funding.

To help resolve their differences, George invites

Scorpio into his limo for a talk.

On the back seat is a large bag containing 10

pounds of blow.

August 15, 1980: San Francisco, CA

Just six months before the events in the Nyack
field, George was a different man. Literally.

For a start he had a second name; he was George

Bosque. He was living in a small apartment at
116 Tallwood Drive in Daly City, 10 miles south
of San Francisco.

And he had no money.

He’d been working part time for the Brink’s

security and protection company for almost
three years, earning $7 an hour, and life had
gone to seed. He had problems whichever way
he looked—his partner, his family, his health, his
career, his politics, his finances. Life wasn’t
meant to turn out this way.

Love was the uppermost problem in his mind.

Well, love and money. Or the lack of both. And
what made it worse was that he was surrounded
 by the huge sums of cash that he had to guard. JOIN

JOIN He fantasized about grabbing some of it one

x day
and escaping to a new life where he could fulfill
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT his dreams. Sometimes when he thought of
MY ACCOUNT stealing the cash, he was reminded of his
favorite line from his favorite film: “You’ve gotta
LOG OUT ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?'”

On the morning of August 15, 1980, he sat in his

security truck staring at several bags of money
that contained over $7 million. He asked himself
the same question again: “Do I feel lucky?”

Yes, he thought. Today is different. Today I feel

lucky.

So George took as much money as he could

carry, and he disappeared into thin air.

Early 1970s: Miami, FL

George Manuel Bosque was born in January
1955 in Miami, Florida, the son of a Cuban
immigrant, Jorge Bosque, who came to the
United States early in the 1950s.

It was a close-knit family dominated by George’s

father who had austere and exacting standards.
George attended a private Catholic elementary
school and then the Miami Military Academy, a
military-style boarding school aimed at well-to-
do families in the South Florida area, whose
slogan was ‘Boys Today, Men Tomorrow.’

George was a young man in a hurry; he was a

class vice president, a member of the debating
club, played for the chess team, and excelled as a
track star. He was the editor-in-chief of The Eagle
Beak, the academy’s newspaper, and was even
listed in the annual volume of “Who’s Who
 Among American High School Students.” JOIN

JOIN x as
Schoolmate Albert Poledri remembered him

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT “the smartest guy I ever met in school.”

MY ACCOUNT George let others know that he was doing well.

“Yes, he was one of a kind,” said Lester Severns,
LOG OUT one of George’s teachers at the military academy.

“But he knew it too. He thought he was much

smarter than everyone else.”

But in the post-Vietnam, counter-cultural, free-

love era, he cut an unlikely pro-establishment
figure. At a time when teenagers were reacting
against the rigid, entrenched post-war attitudes
of their parents, George was rebelling against
the rebellious, hitting out against hippies, and
protesting the student protesters.

He became obsessed with law and order. It

started innocuously. He participated in Junior
Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and the
Miami police department’s Explorer Scout
program. He loved Dirty Harry and vowed to
join the army or the police when he graduated.

“At the time, he was very interested in the

military,” says Stephanie Guinness, who had
George in one of her journalism classes at the
academy. “He always said he wanted to become
a general.”

“He was always dressing up very sharp,” adds

Raoul Fuertes, the academy’s guidance
counselor, “and he loved playing the military
type.”

His father encouraged George’s military

aspirations, boasting to friends that his son had
become a real man, “tough, disciplined, patriotic
d d”A dG ld d thi t
 and proud.” And George would do anything to
make his father proud. JOIN

JOIN x
Others found George more difficult. Lester
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT Severns remembered, “He was the type who
MY ACCOUNT could get in an argument in a locked closet—
alone.”
LOG OUT
Raoul Fuertes was also uneasy. “He was very
bright, but he was a shrewd person. Personally, I
was always a little bit scared of him. I didn’t
trust him at all.”

George started speaking out more forcefully. In

1973, he wrote in The Eagle Beak: “I am sick of
Supreme Court decisions which turn criminals
loose on society… while other decisions try to
take the means of protecting our homes away. I
am sick of being told policemen are mad dogs
who should not have guns… but that criminals
who use guns to rob, maim and murder should
be understood and helped back into society.”

He lashed out at the unpatriotic, the “deserters

and traitors.” He wrote that he’d had it with
“termites” telling Americans they had a sick
society and was “sick of seeing our parents
paying more and more taxes to build schools
while some faculty members are encouraging
students to tear them down.”

Not that he was immune from getting into

trouble with the law. He ‘borrowed’ a car
belonging to his high-school teacher and drove it
out of state for a lark. He was soon caught and
arrested. He was fortunate that the teacher
didn’t press charges, and so the case was
dropped.

Most put his extremist views and wild ways

down to youthful exuberance, and when he
graduated in 1973 he was described in his high
 school yearbook as “an all-American JOIN
overachiever”.
JOIN x

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT He wrote: “Life is a simple contest, in which not

the strong and loudest win, but the silent,
MY ACCOUNT watchful strategist and calculist.”
LOG OUT In one of his last editorials he railed against one
of favorite targets: homosexuals. He was sick of

“not being able to take my girlfriend to a movie

unless I want her exposed to nudity,
homosexuality and the glorification of narcotics.
I am sick of the decline in personal honesty,
personal integrity and human sincerity. Take
note, you in high places…”

It was a bizarre tirade. There were no girlfriends

and movie dates in George’s life. He was gay.

1973 – 1976: Washington, DC

When George graduated, he was confident,
cocky even. Whatever conflict he felt about
being gay, he had the world at his feet and spoke
about a life of public service and standing for
political office. He decided to start out in the
police force, and was recommended to Miami
Dade County’s police department as “a young
man of sterling character.”

He had a rude awakening.

After attending the Miami police academy, he

was passed over for service. So he went to
college at the Citadel military academy in
Charleston, SC, hoping to be admitted to West
Point. He failed there too.

The reasons for George’s failure are not known,

but his father blamed racism for George’s lack of
progress, complaining that it was because “he
 p g p g
lacked any influence from any senators.” JOIN

JOIN x
In August 1975 George moved to Washington

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT D.C. and was hired as a police dispatcher at

George Washington University. It wasn’t the
MY ACCOUNT glittering career move he had in mind, and soon
LOG OUT cracks started to appear in his disciplined
facade. He was arrested on a larceny charge of

stealing police walkie-talkies, but once again he

was released without charge.

On the bright side, he finally had a social life. He

loosened up, stopped hiding his sexuality, and
showed up on the bar scene in Washington’s
Georgetown neighborhood. It was there he met
the love of his life.

George met Carl Denton in 1975 and it was love

at first sight for George. Or whatever a former
anti-gay crusader feels when he realizes he’s
fallen in love with a man.

At 17, Carl was just a teenager—by now, George

was 21— and was a slight, blue-eyed kid with a
crew cut. He was a habitual runaway and had
spent some time in juvenile homes. The two hit it
off, and before long, they moved in together,
living in a small apartment on Capitol Hill.

Their relationship was a doubled-edged sword;

George was devoted to Carl, but he lived in
abject fear of his father ever finding out about
his homosexuality, and the ensuing rejection he
would face.

To make matter worse, he’d also started

experiencing epileptic seizures. The seizures
were scary. They’d come on without warning
and sometimes leave George unconscious. First
his back would arch, next his chest would
t t d th hi li b ld h k
 contract, and then his limbs would shake.
Sometimes he turned blue as his breathing JOIN

JOIN x hour
became labored. It could take up to half an

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT to return to normal again.

MY ACCOUNT George hated being epileptic. Sure, he could deal

with the seizures, but worse than that he feared
LOG OUT that they signaled the end to any possible career
in law enforcement. He knew there was little

chance he’d pass a medical exam. And even if he

did pass, his first seizure on the job would mark
his immediate termination.

George and Carl wanted a fresh start. George

sent a letter to his father saying he was moving
to San Francisco. “I want to make you proud of
me again,” he wrote. “I’m going there to seek my
fortune.”

Within four years he would have a bigger

fortune than anyone dreamed possible.

1976 – 1980: San Francisco, CA

When George arrived in San Francisco, he
immediately applied to the police force. He lied
on the application form about his epilepsy. It
didn’t matter; he was rejected anyway.

He eventually got a job with a uniform, but not

one that he’d expected. He settled for a position
as an animal control officer for the San
Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals (SF-PCA). Colleagues there remember
him as a pleasant and gregarious person, though
they noted some strange interests. Thomas
Edwards, a co-worker at the SF-PCA, described
him as a “self-proclaimed Nazi who had his
apartment bedecked with Nazi regalia.” Edwards
stopped seeing him socially because of this.
Ed d l b G l i i
 Edwards also remembers George complaining
about financial difficulties and often trying to JOIN

JOIN borrow money from people. x

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT Peggy Phillips, another co-worker, remembers

MY ACCOUNT the Nazi flags and regalia as well, but said it was
just something he fooled around with. “He was
LOG OUT fun to be around. He was friendly and pretty
popular.”

The SF-PCA job didn’t last long; in 1977 the

general manager, Richard Avanzino, fired him
for reasons never fully disclosed.

George headed back to the police force

recruitment center, and finally got a job with
them. Well, almost. He became a full-time San
Francisco special police officer—part of a
neighborhood force of private citizens,
appointed and regulated by the San Francisco
Police Commission, who purchase a specific area
of the city and charge private clients hourly
rates for a variety of protection services.

George had a friend, Lou Vance, who bought a

district to patrol and offered half of it to George
for a small fee. For a time, George was happy. He
could pretend that this was the life he’d been
waiting for. He had the works—a gun, a badge,
even a uniform. His youthful confidence came
back, and he threw his weight around,
sometimes too much. One day, he pulled a gun
on an acquaintance’s girlfriend and handcuffed
her—just because he could. Not surprisingly, he
was fired from the job, but he re-applied and
was re-hired within weeks.

The special policeman position was largely a

nighttime job, leaving George free to look for
other daytime security work. In January 1978, he
applied for a job at Brink’s. The Brink’s selection
process was more rigorous than the special
 process was more rigorous than the special
police force. George underwent lie-detector, JOIN

JOIN x
fingerprint and background checks. He had

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT multiple forms to complete and three rounds of

interviews. But then, much to his surprise, he
MY ACCOUNT was offered a job as a security officer.
LOG OUT Undetected were his two arrests, his epilepsy, or
pulling a gun on a friend.

George’s job at Brink’s usually consisted of being

part of an armed five-man team that moved cash
from one San Francisco bank to another in an
armored car. He completed the training and was
on the street within weeks.

With the two security jobs, George should have

been happy. But he wasn’t. In fact he was
depressed. His home life was falling apart, as he
fought frequently with Carl. Often the fights
were about money; sometimes they were just
because George was insecure about how life had
turned out, and afraid for the future.

A neighbor remembers him suffering two bad

epileptic seizures and George fearing he would
lose both jobs as a result. “He knew that if his
employers found out about his epilepsy, they
wouldn’t let him drive or carry a gun. That
meant his livelihood was always on the line,”
said the neighbor.

Another friend, Greg Jones, remembers George

telling him that time was running out, saying,
“He wanted money for proper epilepsy care.
There was no way he could afford treatment
with his security jobs.”

Some people would turn to their family for help

at this stage. But not George. A friend
commented that he would rather die than have
his father learn of his gay lifestyle.
 By 1979, George was desperate. He decided to JOIN

JOIN x he
run for sheriff of San Francisco. So what if

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT had been rejected by the police force in three

states? He figured he had something to offer,
MY ACCOUNT some new ideas, and God knew he could use the
LOG OUT money.

His statement read, “A vote for me is a vote for

safer jails, better jails, a sheriff’s cadet program,
support for human rights, a 25% cut in the
sheriff’s salary, and many other beneficial and
innovative changes.”

It was an unfeasibly optimistic bid, and despite

some aggressive lobbying, he wasn’t even able to
get on the ballot.

George was knocked back by the latest failure.

He felt he was running out of opportunities.

And then came the last straw. On the evening of

August 14, 1980, Carl announced that he was
moving out of their apartment in Daly City. In
fact he’d already packed his bags, and told
George he’d leave the following morning.

Neighbors still remember Carl dragging his

luggage to the nearby intersection, and waiting
for a bus to leave town.

August 15, 1980: San Francisco, CA

At 7 am on a foggy summer morning, George
and a Brink’s driver, Jean Marie Jean, arrived at
San Francisco International Airport in an
armored truck.

They were there to pick up a money shipment

from Honolulu, which they had to take to the
F d lR B ki d t S
 Federal Reserve Bank in downtown San
JOIN
Francisco. The shipment consisted of seven
JOIN large, gray, canvas sacks of money in $50 xand

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT $100 bills. It totaled over $7 million.

MY ACCOUNT After loading the sacks into the truck, George

told the driver that an airline official inside the
LOG OUT terminal wanted to speak with him. It was a lie.

With the driver gone, George drove the truck to

the nearby San Francisco airport Hilton, where
he abandoned the vehicle. As he was getting out
of the truck to unload the money, George noticed
a hotel chambermaid, Pushpa Lal, parking her
car as she arrived for work.

George accosted her at gunpoint, and

transferred two of the seven sacks stuffed with
$50 and $100 bills into her car. Then he took her
car keys and drove off.

Lal claimed George wanted to take her with him,

but she jumped out of the moving vehicle before
it sped away. Her abandoned car was later
discovered a few miles away in Daly City, where
George and Carl had their apartment.

It was found with a note and a $50 bill attached.

The note read:

Dear Lady.

Sorry I had to use your car and that you were so

scared.

Yours,

A Man in Trouble.

And with that, George disappeared.

August 1980 – November 1981: The

 August 1980 November 1981: The
Search for George Bosque JOIN

JOIN x
When the dust settled, the cops calculated that
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT George had made off with bank bills totaling
$1.85 million.
MY ACCOUNT
The victims were Honolulu’s First Hawaiian and
LOG OUT
Central Pacific banks, though checks covering

the losses were swiftly sent out by Brink’s and

covered by the insurers, Lloyd’s of London.

It was one of the largest hauls ever stolen from

Brink’s, but worse than the financial loss was the
corporate shame and embarrassment. The
company was the world’s largest security
transportation company. It claimed to have the
highest standards. Your money was supposed to
be secure with Brink’s. But now it had been
humiliated by an epileptic, failed security guard.

Word of the robbery splashed across

newspapers all over the world. The irony was
that it was an open and shut case. The cops knew
who did it, and how he did it. They just had no
idea where he was.

“We want him found,” fumed Edward S.

Lenehan, vice president of Brink’s. “We want to
set an example for the other employees.” The
theft angered the firm so much that a $50,000
reward was offered for information leading to
capture of the thief. Lloyd’s of London, equally
angered by the robbery, added more funds until
the reward totaled $150,000.

A huge nationwide manhunt was launched.

Wanted notices were sent out far and wide: the
FBI transmitted George’s photograph and
physical description to police agencies around
the country. George was described as “26 years
 old, 6 feet tall, 180 pounds, slender, and has JOIN
worn a mustache. He is of Cuban descent, and is
JOIN x
fluent in Spanish. He has suffered from epilepsy.
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT He is a deeply troubled man, a Nazi buff and a
MY ACCOUNT drifter.”

LOG OUT Soon agents issued statements saying that

George was “know to associate with
homosexuals.” They combed the Castro district
of San Francisco armed with pictures of George,
and widened their search to look for Carl—
described as “a roommate and alleged lover of
the fugitive.”

Five days later, agents learned that Carl had

flown to Dallas. He turned himself into police
there. He’d just split up with George, he told
them, and knew nothing of the robbery. Carl’s
mother agreed with her son: “It was nothing to
do with him. George is a leader, and Carl is a
follower. But Carl has sense enough to know
right from wrong.” The police agreed, and Carl
was ruled out as an accomplice or a suspect.

At first the police were optimistic. It would

surely only be a matter of days before George
was found. Edward S. Lenehan of Brink’s stated
that the FBI “is pursuing this so vigorously and
putting on so much pressure that eventually
they will get positive results”.

But in truth no one had a clue where George

was.

And then George got in touch with the outside

world.

First he sent an envelope with $10,000 in $50

bills to the San Francisco Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals where he had
once worked. He included a note to Richard
A i th di t h h d di i d hi i
 Avanzino, the director who had dismissed him in
mysterious circumstances three years earlier. JOIN

JOIN x
The note said:
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
Dear Mr. Avanzino.
MY ACCOUNT
You are a good and honest man.
LOG OUT

Please use this humble amount to benefit our

animals.

God bless you.

Mr. Anonymous.

The press descended on the SF-PCA offices.

Avanzino confirmed that he’d fired George
several years earlier but wouldn’t say why to the
media. Avanzino just said, “I appreciate his
intent with this donation, but I wish it had come
under different circumstances.”

Then George sent $20,000 to his former partner,

special police officer Lou Vance.

This time the note read:

Here’s the money I owe you for your beat and the
equipment.

I hope your children will remember me for my

good points, and I hope you use the money wisely
for that mobile home that you wanted.

Don’t forget: It’s a chance that makes brothers,

but the heart that makes friends.

Vance handed the money over to the authorities.

In September 1980, George was charged in

absentia. A federal grand jury indicted him with
larceny of bank funds and theft from an
interstate shipment. The two counts carried a
 p
maximum sentence of 35 years in prison and a JOIN

JOIN $15,000 fine. x

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT Suddenly sightings of George were reported all

over the country and investigators were
MY ACCOUNT dispatched in every direction, from New York to
LOG OUT Chicago to Los Angeles to Miami and Dallas. At
one point, FBI agents were sent to Peru to search

for George in a colony of 1,000 Cuban

expatriates.

It wasn’t long before interview requests poured

into the Miami home of Jorge Bosque, George’s
father.

“As far as I know, he has never been out of the

U.S. except for the times I took him to Cuba
when he was a baby. I would be surprised if he’s
in Peru but, on second thought, I wouldn’t.
Nothing surprises me anymore. I never thought
George was capable of doing something like this
in the first place”.

Asked if it was true that his son was gay, Jorge

reacted angrily: “No, absolutely not. I’m sure he
has girlfriends. He has mentioned several to me.
A father never asked for a better son than
George. I think possibly he may have been
induced by someone else to do this terrible
thing, if indeed he did do it”.

Jorge added: “Ever since I learned about this, I

can’t sleep well. I am afraid for my son. Someone
could kill him.”

But as the weeks turned to months after the

theft, there were no leads or clues about George.

“There’s just no telling where he is,” admitted

William Nettles, assistant special agent in charge
of the Miami FBI office. “We’ve been pretty much
 p y
depending on people letting us know if and JOIN
when he does come in or if they hear from
x him.”
JOIN
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT On the one-year anniversary of George being on
the run, Bill Duff, an FBI spokesman, was even
MY ACCOUNT more forthright. When asked where George
LOG OUT might be, Duff said, “To be honest, we have
absolutely no idea.”

So what happened to George Bosque, and where

did he go?

August 1980 – November 1981: On

the Run
Details of George Bosque’s movements have
been largely unknown since he disappeared
from the San Francisco airport Hilton. For the
next 15 months he contacted few if any of his old
friends, and certainly didn’t dare to speak with
his family. However, with the assistance of
people he met on the lam and information from
police officers who tried to track him down, for
the first time some of his movements can be
pieced together.

The first place George headed to was New York.

He hadn’t been there before and figured it was a
big city where he could blend in and no one
would recognize him. He took on an assumed
identity: he became millionaire businessman
and philanthropist ‘J. R. Lewis’. He made contact
with people who supplied him with phony
documents. He became friends with a gay crowd
on the Manhattan bar scene and was invited to
Fire Island, where he ended up couch surfing for
the remainder of the summer.

At first, caution reigned supreme. He kept his

money in a series of suitcases that he took
 y
everywhere and never let out of sight. He JOIN

JOIN became paranoid about staying in the same

x
place for fear that he would be easier to find, so
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT in September he set off again, this time turning
MY ACCOUNT up in Chicago. He realized quickly just how
much his money impressed people, and
LOG OUT
suddenly he was popular, in demand, and well-
liked. He became friends with a police lieutenant

who acted as his personal chauffeur around

town. A politician threw a party in his honor. He
was invited to fundraisers, balls, and the
extravagant soirees of the wealthy.

From Chicago, he went to Denver, Dallas,

Florida, and then Peru. George’s confidence
grew. He checked into penthouse suites in five-
star hotels, bought fancy clothes, and rented
expensive limos with uniformed chauffeurs. He
organized lavish parties and developed a
designer drug habit.

And he was generous too. Along the way George

doled out money to people he met: $20,000 to a
new friend who wanted to open a fitness center;
$10,000 to someone who needed money for a
sick relative; $5,000 to a person he met who
wanted to fly to Europe to see their relatives.

All cash gifts. Money down. No questions asked.

On average George was spending $4,000 each
day.

He once got into a disagreement with a store that

claimed he hadn’t settled his account. He filed
court papers—all using the fake name ‘J. R.
Lewis.’

Living in hotels and settling the bills in cash

could raise suspicions, though. At the end of
1980, he decided he needed a permanent base.
H d t i d th t N Y k th b t l
 He determined that New York was the best place
for him to live, so he took out a $1,160-a-month JOIN

JOIN x and
lease on an apartment in Greenwich Village

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT spent $60,000 on furnishing and decorating it in

opulent Art Deco style.
MY ACCOUNT
Back in New York, George’s spending showed no
LOG OUT sign of slowing down. He took regular helicopter
trips, dined at the Waldorf on beluga caviar and

champagne, and showed up at a $500-per-plate

fundraiser for Jimmy Carter, who was engaged
in a presidential election fight with Ronald
Reagan.

George liked to mix with the high-class crowd

but was also wild-eyed when it came to the
seamier side of New York. He discovered the
Times Square adult theaters, the gay bar scene
and was a regular visitor to the bathhouses.

And one night he befriended an adult film

director, Chris Covino, aka John Christopher.

Chris Covino’s story

Born in September 1953, Chris Covino was 27
when he met George Bosque, but already a
veteran of the New York pornographic film
scene.

The eldest of three brothers, Chris was raised in

a straitlaced and traditional New Jersey family.
After graduating from high school, he attended
the local Montclair State University, 20 miles
west of New York City, where he was active in
the theater group and photography clubs. He
loved developing short scripts that he and others
performed as sketches on campus. They were
light and zany affairs, combining slapstick with
satirical observations of society. One friend
b th b i b t
 remembers them as being a cross between
Monty Python and The Three Stooges. Fellow JOIN

JOIN x being
students from the time remember Chris as

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT friendly, energetic and creative.

MY ACCOUNT He was also gay, a fact that he steadfastly kept

from his family.
LOG OUT
While at Montclair, Chris developed an interest
in filmmaking, and by the time he graduated
he’d settled upon a career in film. He headed to
Manhattan where he got work as a trainee
editor. He edited documentaries, industrial films
and commercials, while continuing to work on
his own scripts in the hope that he’d get the
chance to make them into low-budget films.

In 1972, Chris met Chuck Vincent. Chuck wanted

to make films too, and already had a career
behind him in regional theater as a director and
stage manager. It was a good match; Chuck was
13 years older than Chris and acted as a mentor
and father figure to him as they both strove to
get established as filmmakers.

Chuck’s idea was to jump in at the deep end and

just start making films. Adult films, to be precise.
Pornography was virtually guaranteed to make
money, he reasoned; they’d learn the business,
and then they’d take their skills out west and get
into the big time.

And for the next decade, they did just that. Chris
wrote, edited or was production manager for
many of Chuck’s films. He acted and helped
Chuck direct too. And then he made his own
films, often with the same humor that had
marked his early skits. Chris lived at 322 West
57th Street in Manhattan, and they formed a
loose and informal network of gay filmmakers
that included the Amero brothers and David
Davidson making largely straight pornographic
 Davidson, making largely straight pornographic
film product. JOIN

JOIN x
Chris was a charismatic and popular member of
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT the group. He was vibrant, the life and soul of
MY ACCOUNT any gathering. His peers regarded him as being a
more talented filmmaker than most on the
LOG OUT scene, technically gifted, hard-working and
bursting full of ideas. Many of them considered

him the most likely to break into the

mainstream. One crew member remembers, “He
had great sensibility, was good with actors, and
had a great eye for scene composition. We all
thought he was the most likely to break out and
succeed.”

But if Chris was going to make adult films, they

had to be straight. Friends recall him voicing his
discomfort with gay pornography. He was
offered good money to make a gay adult feature.
People like Bill Perry—owner of the Circus
Cinema and the Big Top—often approached him.
Chris invariably turned them down.

He also was concerned that people would

connect him to his adult films. Typically he used
the name ‘John Christopher’ to mask his
involvement. And unlike other filmmakers of the
era, he wasn’t interested in publicity, rarely
granting interviews, and staying away from
most industry events. He was focused on moving
to Hollywood eventually and he didn’t want to
jeopardize that.

And then there was his family. They knew

nothing of his porn career, still thinking he was
employed in editing commercials and
experimental films. His brothers would come
and stay with him in the city, but always left
none the wiser.
 In his spare time Chris took full advantage of the JOIN
gay life that existed in New York at the tail end of
JOIN x
the 1970s—in all its extravagant, experimental,
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT and extreme forms. He was a regular at sex
MY ACCOUNT clubs like the Ramrod, the Mineshaft, and the
Toilet, living a lusty and carefree existence.
LOG OUT
In late 1980, Chris met George Bosque at a gay
bar in the Village. George hadn’t been in the city
long and wanted to know more about the gay
scene. They talked and Chris told George that he
was in the film business. Low budget fare. The
sort of films that play in the Times Square
theaters that George enjoyed. George asked if
Chris needed an investor.

Chris was used to sexually curious people

approaching him with offers of money in return
for the chance to hang out on set and cavort with
porno stars, so at first he didn’t pay much
attention to George’s offer.

But George invited him back to his new

apartment that he was in the midst of
decorating. And he showed Chris the cash.
Suitcases full of it.

“How about we make an all-male film? George

said. “Something really classy. Something that’s
never been done before. How much would you
need?”

Scorpio’s story
George Bosque and Chris Covino settled on an
initial budget of $100,000, which already made it
one of the most expensive gay porn productions
of its time. Over the course of the next months,
the budget would balloon still higher. For this
kind of money, Chris Covino was willing to direct
fil
 a gay film.
JOIN
Chris hired the actors (predominantly gay)
x and
JOIN
crew (predominantly straight) and they
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT arranged the shoot for early 1981.
MY ACCOUNT One of the first actors that Chris wanted to hire
LOG OUT was a newcomer sent to him from Jack Deveau,
the founder of the influential New York adult
company Hand in Hand Films. The actor’s name
was Scorpio, and Chris liked his look: trashy,
rebellious, but vulnerable and sensitive too.
Scorpio was starting to make waves in films and
magazines of the time and Chris wanted him for
his new movie.

Scorpio was born Wilbur James Weiss Jr. in

November 1952 in Trenton, New Jersey. The
oldest of four kids, he was raised in a country
trailer park. Dating boys seemed natural to him
as a teenager, and it was only when his mother,
Mildred, took him aside and told him that he
was gay, and therefore different from most other
boys, did the penny drop.

When Wilbur was 18, he left home and kicked

around a variety of cities doing this and that.
Skating in the roller derby in Philadelphia,
factory work in Washington D.C., sales down in
Miami. In New York he tried out as a model, but
after an agent took an upfront fee of $750 from
him and then disappeared, Wilbur was broke
and desperate.

He decided to become a stripper, re-named

himself Scorpio after his astrological sign, and
sealed the deal the same day by getting a tattoo
of a scorpion on his arm. He’d always considered
himself to be an exhibitionist, so the work was
easy and fun. He started in straight clubs in New
Jersey, then moved quickly into gay bars. Before
long he was offered magazine shoots; it paid
 long he was offered magazine shoots; it paid
well and helped him get higher-paid stripping JOIN

JOIN x
work too. Soon he was traveling out to Long

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT Island, Connecticut, and New York City for

dancing gigs.
MY ACCOUNT
His mother was his biggest fan. She thought
LOG OUT Scorpio was a bona fide star. She turned up at
the gay clubs to see him strip and even made his

stripping costumes. She bought copies of his

pictorials and proudly showed them to all her
trailer park friends. In one photo spread, he
posed with Baxter, the stuffed teddy bear, in his
rear pocket. It became famous and made him a
favorite with the gay clientele.

After moving to New York, Scorpio answered an

ad in Topman magazine announcing ‘Models
Wanted’ and met the team behind Hand in Hand
Films: Deveau, Bob Alvarez, and Case Chapman.
They liked what they saw and shot him in a one-
man short, Double Scorpio, before taking him off
to Fire Island to shoot a feature, Just Blonds.
Scorpio had never heard of Fire Island before
the film shoot, and liked it so much he stayed out
there.

The Hand in Hand films with Scorpio proved to

be hits, and when Scorpio returned to New York
City he was surprised with offers from
magazines, filmmakers, and strip clubs.

One of the people who contacted him was Chris

Covino, who offered Scorpio a lead role in his
new big budget film, an all-male drama set in
ancient Rome.

Fall 1980: Shooting ‘Centurians of

Rome’, New York, NY
 Chris Covino came up with a plot for the movie,
JOIN
focused on two Roman countrymen sold into
JOIN slavery for not paying their taxes during
x

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT Caligula’s reign as Emperor. They have to earn

their freedom by bewitching their captors. It was
MY ACCOUNT Caligula meets Boys in the Sand.
LOG OUT
The two leads were to be played by Scorpio (as
Octavius) and the veteran George Payne, who

was cast as Demetrius. Other roles were filled by

familiar faces on the adult scene film including
David Morris, Eric Ryan, and Ed Riley.

Michael Flent, the Emperor, was really Fred

Gormley, the art director of The New York Native
newspaper and a future AIDS activist. He
appeared under his real name in the safe-sex
films Inevitable Love and Chance of a Lifetime. He
later chronicled his experience making the film
in the article “My Brief Career in Porn,”
published in Christopher Street magazine.

Chris assembled members of the crew that

worked on Chuck Vincent films. They included
Larry Revene as the cinematographer, Bill
Slobodian, porn star Candida Royalle’s husband
Per Sjostedt, and Chuck’s photographer friend
Marco Nero.

It was Chuck who arranged for the cast and crew

to stay in the house of a friend in Nyack; the
friend was a local politician who was happy to
accommodate a house full of porn people, and as
a result several porn films were shot there in the
1980s.

Chris also found a prop house in Manhattan that

had a large array of items left over from a recent
Broadway production set in ancient Greece:
swords, daggers, helmets, tunics, chains, even
pillars. Crew members remember lugging the
 rented items everywhere for the next two weeks. JOIN

JOIN In the days leading up to the shoot, Chris x

worked

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT hard to ensure a smooth production, but

problems surfaced even before shooting started.
MY ACCOUNT
To begin with George Payne was unhappy with
LOG OUT the amount of oral sex he was asked to do, and
bristled with hostility if anyone suggested he

should ever bottom in any scene. He

complained, moaned, and protested, but ever the
professional, he was somehow always ready for
anything when push came to shove.

Scorpio liked George Payne but later

remembered the scenes with him were poor
because he perceived George had a streak of
self-loathing: “This was especially true when he
did any of the gay sex scenes. Who knows if he
was bi-sexual anyway? We respected him, but he
was intense and kept himself to himself, not
wanting to mix with the rest of us.”

George Bosque, on the other hand, seemed

completely at home. He was popular and
friendly to everyone on set. Sometimes too
friendly. He took advantage of his producer
privilege to disappear with some of the actors
from time to time, holding up production while
the crew waited for the actor to return. One cast
member recalls George’s dark hair and
mustache, and “attractive, quiet guy, crossover
looks.”

His input wasn’t just of the sexual variety.

Scorpio remembered George overriding Chris
frequently and insisting on doing things a
different way. George came up with dialogue
that he wanted to add at the last minute, lines so
ridiculous that the crew could barely stand up
straight for laughing
 straight for laughing.
JOIN
One of the featured actors, Ed Wiley, described
JOIN x
the set as total confusion: “Two weeks before the
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT film, we had to study our scripts and memorize
MY ACCOUNT our lines. Then, what they did was change
everyone’s scripts the day of the shooting. I fell
LOG OUT off the damned stage once. The film crew was
straight; they were hysterical, rolling around on

the floor laughing when people missed their

lines. One guy leaned up against one of the poles
supporting the stage. It gave way and the whole
top of the stage fell down on everybody. Crazy! It
could have been a gay blooper movie but the
director wanted it to be something more
serious.”

Another source of unintentional comedy were

the attempts by several of the actors playing
centurions to ride horses for the first time. Their
utter lack of mastery with the animals meant
that the filmmakers were at the mercy of
wherever the horses wanted to go.

There were some benefits for those involved.

The catering on set was plentiful and
extravagant, consisting of food, drinks and a
liberal selection of drugs. And George personally
paid everyone in cash at the end of each day out
of a suitcase of money in the limo. In fact, the
crew quickly realized that if the film took longer
to make then they would get paid more. So they
milked it. George didn’t seem to mind, and just
kept doling out the money with a smile. No one
on the crew had ever seen anything like it
before. It was almost as if he had an unlimited
supply of cash.

Additional scenes were shot back in New York

City, at Plato’s Retreat in front of a Roman
whirlpool and at a private sex club on 23rd
 whirlpool, and at a private sex club on 23rd
Street, home of the quaintly named Fist Fuckers JOIN

JOIN of America club. (The crew derived comicx

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT mileage by acting confused and referring to the

group as the ‘Future Farmers of America.’) A
MY ACCOUNT crew member remembers it as “the craziest
LOG OUT place I’ve been to. It had latex-covered walls.
They offered the guy who was paying for the
film some free lifetime membership there if he
added a fisting scene. So we had to go to this
weird place and film it. Chris wanted George
Payne to do it, but George predictably said, ‘no
way’. Somehow they came to an understanding,
and next thing you know, there was George with
a tub of Crisco kneeling in front of the Emperor
ready to go…”

Exteriors were shot in downtown Manhattan

early on a Saturday morning before the tourists
turned up. The historical buildings in the
financial district provided a pseudo-Roman
backdrop in a city otherwise infested with
skyscrapers.

Reports that the film took four days to shoot

were wide off the mark. There were 12 principal
shooting days in total.

Spring 1981: Centurians of Rome—

postproduction, New York, NY

George Bosque was jubilant at the end of the

shoot. He threw a huge party for cast and crew
at The Underground nightclub at 860 Broadway.
All guests received welcoming packages that
included a gram of coke and a couple of joints.
As befitting a party to celebrate a sex film set in
ancient Rome, the gathering degenerated into an
orgy with sex taking place openly all over the
club.
 What George hadn’t realized was that more JOIN

JOIN money was still needed to finish the film. xChris

estimated that $150,000 had been spent up to
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
this point, and he had a $5,000 float of cash that
MY ACCOUNT George had given him that would get him started

LOG OUT on the editing, but more funds were needed for
postproduction. The trouble was that now that

the filming experience was over, George had

suddenly become more difficult to find.

Chris approached Jack Deveau at Hand in Hand

Films, who agreed to provide the remaining
money in return for ownership of the finished
product.

The film was to be called Centurions of Rome,

which might have been more convincing if
someone hadn’t misspelled the title word
‘Centurions’ as ‘Centurians’ in all the credits and
publicity.

Chris edited the film with Carter Stevens at

Bunny Atlas’ Bunco Films. It was a near
impossible job. Carter had heard about the
mountains of cocaine on set, and the evidence
was on film; hours of footage with zonked-out
male performers struggling to achieve erections.

“Trying to make this look like a hardcore fuck

film was a nightmare,” remembers Carter.

He also found the New Jersey accents of the cast

so incongruous and funny, he was tempted to re-
name the film ‘Centurians of Bayonne.’

Chris was a fan of George Lucas’ Star Wars

(1977) and so they adopted a similar opening
credit sequence. John Williams’ Star Wars
soundtrack was also appropriated liberally, as
was the Queen soundtrack to Flash Gordon
 Q
(1980). JOIN

JOIN x
By now George had disappeared completely.

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT Perhaps he was nervous about the publicity that

the film was generating; perhaps he’d already
MY ACCOUNT achieved exactly what he wanted. Either way,
LOG OUT Chris never heard from or saw George again.

The movie was finally released with the promise

of “Caligula’s empire, ruled by passion,
destroyed by lust with an all-star cast of slaves
and Romans.” It was breathlessly described as
having “31 luscious men sprawl across the
screen at some point and realistic uniforms and
costumes, dungeon equipment and encounters
add to their passionate fight for freedom and
man-love. Immense scripting, acting, set design,
direction, and superior efforts were all
combined to make this one of the most sought-
after films of all time.”

The film was eagerly anticipated; it had been

heavily trailed with advance features in
magazines like Honcho and Mandate, which
claimed that it was the most expensive gay porn
film ever made. It played at the 55th Street
Playhouse for three months, and the Wall Street
Journal claimed it earned $160,000 in the first
few weeks.

But the film polarized the critics. Some liked it,

such as the reviewer in Gay Chicago who wrote
that, “if you simply fast forward to the sex
scenes, you’ll be missing much of the effect. In
other words, view the film as you would a soft-
core flick and you will be pleasantly surprised.”

However, the Manshots magazine review was

more honest, noting that the movie, “wants to
aspire to a decadent film like Fellini’s Satyricon
 aspire to a decadent film like Fellini’s Satyricon,
but is instead a mishmash that combines the JOIN

JOIN reverential revisionism so adored by Cecilx B.

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT DeMille and the exploitational pandering of the

cloak-and-sandal epics made popular by Steve
MY ACCOUNT Reeves. In short, it is an X-rated cross between
LOG OUT Samson and Delilah and Hercules Unchained.”

The Film World Guide was the most brutal,

describing the film as “an artistic failure” and
“the strangest gay adult film ever made.”

November 1981: San Francisco, CA

By the fall of 1981, George Bosque had been on
the run for 15 months. If Lady Luck had favored
him, Mother Nature was now closing in.

His epileptic seizures continued and he feared

being alone when the next episode occurred. He
was also gripped by loneliness, still consumed by
his love for Carl and the failure of their
relationship.

The cops hadn’t come close to finding him, and

his case had gone from being a well-publicized
irritation to a major law enforcement
embarrassment. Part of the reason that George
had managed to evade capture was that he
resisted the temptation to contact anyone from
his former life. But as his money started to
dwindle and loneliness set in, that was becoming
more difficult.

Where once he dreamed of stealing money and

fleeing from the cops, now he fantasized about
surrendering. He was sure that if only he could
find Carl, and confess everything to him, they
could still have a future together. He imagined
C l till li i l lif i S F i
 Carl still living a normal life in San Francisco
and it drove him crazy. JOIN

JOIN x
In November 1981, George left his New York
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT apartment and returned to San Francisco for the
MY ACCOUNT first time since the robbery. The sole reason: to
find Carl and get back together again.
LOG OUT
It was a risky move. The $150,000 reward for
information leading to his arrest was still in
place, and posters with his likeness were widely
circulated around San Francisco.

George checked into a cheap, unremarkable

motel in San Francisco and started looking for
Carl. What he didn’t realize was that Carl had
moved to Houston, Texas the previous year and
had left little trace. Desperate, George made
daily calls to old friends from a phone booth in a
Safeway parking lot to try and track his former
lover down.

At 6:15 pm on November 22nd, George finished

making his calls from his usual phone in the
supermarket lot, crowded with people doing
Thanksgiving shopping. He was walking away
from the phone booth when police apprehended
him.

The police had been tipped off by one of George’s

friends who had their eye on the reward.

George had been at large for 464 days.

FBI Special Agent William D. Newmann said

George seemed “relieved” when he was arrested.
He was described as “bearded and wearing blue
jeans and a striped T-shirt, with $100 in his
pocket. He offered no resistance, and was
unarmed.”

George was taken to the Federal Building in San

Francisco, where FBI agents questioned him for
 g q
five hours. He was “gentlemanly, polite and JOIN
cooperative” when questioned, but said he
x was
JOIN
on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “I did it
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT because I was losing a lover of five years, I was
MY ACCOUNT having these epileptic seizures that could have
cost me my police department job. I wanted to
LOG OUT go to home to Miami for medical treatment but I

couldn’t tell my family because of my gay

lifestyle.”

“He was foiled by love. He missed a particular

person who is still out there,” George’s attorney,
Ray Archuleta said, though he refused to identify
the person in question. He was “tired of running
after 15 months as a fugitive, and was sick,
lonely, and may have been broke too.”

George said, “I’m very relieved about a lot of

things. You get to the point where you hurt so
much inside. And you’re at odds with yourself as
to what you’re doing with your life—and what
you’ve done—that you want to end it. Money
buys you nothing. I have found out that if you
have your health and someone to love, you have
everything.”

When asked about the person who shopped him,

he brushed it off: “I bear no ill will to them. I
bear no bitterness, because if got hit tomorrow
by a city bus, I could say I have lived a very full
life.”

George was transferred under heavy guard to

the Hall of Justice, where he was booked. The
tall, stocky suspect, wearing a black beard and
mustache, acted mannerly and cooperative in
court, replying, “Yes, your honor,” to questions
from the judge.

Th f ll i d h db f US
 The following day he appeared before a U.S.
Magistrate where bail was set at a near- JOIN

JOIN unprecedented $2 million. x

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
MY ACCOUNT 1981 – 1986: Prosecution and
LOG OUT Punishment

George’s attorneys entered guilty pleas to two

charges of stealing money belonging to a
federally insured bank and robbery from an
interstate shipment of property, but Federal
District Judge Stanley Weigel ordered that he
must still stand trial on a third charge of assault
with a gun. If convicted, George faced 20 years in
jail and a $10,000 fine.

George adamantly denied use of a gun and

almost convinced the prosecutor, an aggressive
attorney in his late thirties named Robert
Mueller, to drop the assault charge. Mueller, of
course, would go on to become director of the
FBI and, later, the special counsel investigating
Russian interference in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election. But in the early 1980s
Mueller was a young federal prosecutor trying to
make a name for himself in the U.S. attorney’s
office in San Francisco.

Ultimately the prosecution proceeded with the

assault charge and George was convicted by a
jury after a two-day trial. The judge considered a
sentence significantly lighter than the potential
20-year maximum but Mueller intervened. He
argued that George showed no remorse and
hadn’t been honest with the court about what
happened to the money. Mueller said his office
believed George had squirreled away funds to be
used upon his release from prison. In response,
 the judge sentenced George to 15 years at the
JOIN
federal correction institution in Pleasanton,
JOIN x
California.
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
Speaking as he was led away, George said, “I
MY ACCOUNT want to get my life together as soon as possible. I
LOG OUT realize I have to make up to society in one way
or another. I have faith in the court’s judgment. I
have been extremely sorry for my mistake.”
But what about the money George took? Did he
really spend all of it? Or was there any left that
he managed to hide away before his arrest?

Like Mueller, the FBI was convinced there had to

be money left over, suggesting that it would be
hard to spend that much in a short period. They
weren’t finished with George yet.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Ward said: “We

always felt that there was some money out there
due to the sheer volume of it. He told all these
grand tales of investing in pornographic films.
Naturally when you hear that you become
suspicious. He went through a hell of a lot of
money over a short period of time, and there’s
no solid information where it went.”

Even George’s defense attorney, Ray Archuleta

admitted to reporters that “hundreds of
thousands of dollars are unaccounted for.”

George denied that there was any money left. “I

did give the money away, and I did spend the
money. Call it stupid, but it’s a fact. I gave money
to a score of people, different cases on individual
merit, without giving it a lot of thought.”

Lloyd’s of London, who as insurer to Brink’s had

to stump up the entire amount that George stole,
was skeptical. The company forced George to
take a lie detector test. He passed.
 In February 1982, Lloyd’s of London sued George JOIN
for the entire $1.85 million, but George held
JOIN x
firm: he was broke, he claimed, and the money
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT had all been spent. He told them the only
MY ACCOUNT possibility was to recover the almost $200,000
that he’d invested in Centurians of Rome. So
LOG OUT Lloyd’s filed papers in New York against Hand in
Hand Films, claiming ownership of the movie.

Case Chapman, part owner of Hand in Hand

Films, went to court for the preliminary hearing.

Hand in Hand’s defense was an unusual one:

Perhaps the film was funded with the stolen
funds. Who knows? But would Lloyd’s of
London, founded centuries earlier in 1688 to
provide insurance to some of the most fabled
merchants and ship-owners in maritime history,
really want to own a hardcore gay pornographic
film? Still photographs from the movie were
passed around in court. Anal sex galore. George
Payne fisting Caligula. A daisy chain of oral sex
between the gladiators.

The venerable gentlemen of Lloyd’s of London

were red-faced, and backed off. Were they that
desperate? They considered suing Hand in Hand
films for the profits, but would that look any
better? They didn’t want the publicity that
would accompany this case. They beat a hasty
retreat.

But the doubts about whether any money

remained still lingered. As George approached
his first parole hearing in the mid 1980s, the FBI
suggested administering another lie detector test
to see if George was telling the truth. This time
George refused.

“It is my understanding that there is no money

left”, George’s new attorney, Stephen Perelson,
 said. JOIN

JOIN George was released on parole in 1986. x

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
MY ACCOUNT Spring 1981: Nyack, NY
LOG OUT Back on the set of Centurians of Rome, George
Bosque sits in the back seat of his limousine. He

invites Scorpio to help himself to as much

cocaine as he wants. Scorpio accepts.

They emerge from the car 20 minutes later, and

the mood on set changes completely. Everyone is
happy and smiles. Scorpio declares he can work
with the changed script. Chris Covino is relieved.
Filming resumes.

Later that day, George, Chris and Scorpio lunch

together, laughing about the earlier hiccup.

In some ways, Centurians of Rome marks a high

point for each of them. Life may never be this
good again: Chris will never again have creative
control over such a big budget, just as this is the
only time Scorpio will be the star of such an
ambitious film. And George? This movie may be
the closest he came to finding happiness.

The next two decades will bring them all

tragedy.

Chris Covino moved to Los Angeles to pursue his

dream of being a successful mainstream film
director. He got an apartment at 3640 Barham
Boulevard, just northwest of the Hollywood sign,
and set himself up in business as a production
and location manager. For a short time he was
helpful to his old adult filmmaker friends when
they turned up to shoot on the West Coast. He
made some inroads into the mainstream
i d t b f t ti AIDS Hi f il
 industry before contracting AIDS. His family
came out west to bring him back to Jersey to JOIN

JOIN care for him. x

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT Says a friend: “He was one of the first to get the
MY ACCOUNT illness. With hindsight I guess it wasn’t such a
surprise given the wild lifestyle he had. But at
LOG OUT the time it was a complete shock. We didn’t even

know what AIDS was. That was the first time

many of us had heard of it.”

Another friend remembers Chris telling people

that his condition was the result of parasitic
amoebas: “The last time I saw him he was going
to Mexico to look for a cure. He deteriorated
quickly after that.”

Chris Covino was 31 when he died.

Scorpio’s film career was largely over by 1985. In

a mid-1990s interview, he talked about how the
New York scene had ended: “A number of the
directors died, such as Jack Deveau and
Christopher Rage, and others just stopped
making films. I figured that by then I was too old
to do films. And it bothered me to be honest,” he
said.

He moved to Florida, first to Miami to work in an

adult bookstore, then to Pensacola as a hair
stylist. He dreamed of making a comeback but
apart from being given an occasional supporting
role, no one seemed interested.

He died of stomach cancer and complications

from AIDS on December 24, 1998 at his home in
Pensacola. He was 46.

Many other gay actors appeared in the film. We

obtained the actor releases for this article and
tried to track down 34 of the men who appeared
 pp
in front of the camera: 22 of them died before JOIN
their 45th birthdays, most of them ravaged
x by
JOIN
AIDS.
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
As for George Bosque, after he was released
MY ACCOUNT from prison he lived in San Francisco. He
LOG OUT bounced around different addresses between
the Haight-Ashbury and Castro areas for a while,
before ending up renting a small apartment at
584 Castro Street. As much as he tried, he wasn’t
able to revive his relationship with Carl.

On July 1, 1991 George was found dead of a drug

overdose. According to the coroner, “white
powder and narcotics paraphernalia were in his
apartment.” He was 36.

Carl died in 2000 in Houston, Texas at the age of

41.

Despite the toll it took on him, towards the end

of his life, George admitted there had been many
times he’d been happy while on the run. “My
biggest enjoyment with the money came about
when I shared it with other people. I’ve met
some very wonderful people and done some
nice things I will never regret or be embarrassed
about.”

When asked how he managed to spend all the

money in just a year and a half, he allegedly
replied: “I spent half of it gambling, drinking,
and making a porn film.”

“I guess I squandered the rest.”

Ashley West and April Hall are

the founders of TheRialtoReport.com, the
authoritative online archive for oral history,
audio recordings and photographs documenting
the Golden Age of Adult Film.
 JOIN

JOIN x

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
MOONLIGHTING READ THIS LIST
MY ACCOUNT
The Hezbollah Sleeper Agent
Was a Russian Plot Behind the Venezuela
Coup?
ANNIKA HERNROTH

LOG OUT
Trump Nominates Obama-Era Border Patrol

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Chief to Lead ICE
SCOTT BIXBY

Mexico Wants You to Think Acapulco Is Safe.

America
But Is It?
SHAWN COHEN

Meghan Markle’s Labor Likely to Be

Induced in Days
TOM SYKES, TIM TEEMAN
Ali Kourani allegedly helped a global terrorist network plot revenge
against the U.S. from a home in the Bronx. He was undone after Ancient World’s Largest Cathedral Is Full of
running a stop sign with pairs of Uggs. Surprises
CANDIDA MOSS
Michael Daly . . : AM ET

Naomi Rodriguez is an emergency

medical technician who works 12-hour
shifts in the streets of The Bronx, so she
immediately recognized the irony when
the unremarkable-looking man who
lived one floor above her was alleged to
be a terrorist sleeper agent.

“I save lives, and here’s this one trying to

take them,” she remarked this week
from the doorway of her apartment on
West 238th Street in the borough’s
Kingsbridge Heights section.

Neither Ali Kourani’s attire nor

demeanor gave any hint of his religion
or ideology.

“How do you say, it’s just unexpected,”

Rodriguez added. “Very unexpected.”

She recalled that at the time of his arrest

last June, the news called 34-year-old
 Kourani “the Kingsbridge Heights
JOIN
Terrorist.” But he was not just another
JOIN lone wolf inspired to Islamic radicalism
x

EXCLUSIVEbyCONTENT
internet hate sites and following
online instructions to build a bomb in
MY ACCOUNT
the kitchen of his mom.

LOG OUT As will become clear when he goes on

trial Monday, this seemingly
unremarkable man whom Rodriguez
saw in the stairway is alleged to have
been a longtime undercover operative
for an international terrorist
organization.

Kourani had allegedly been recruited as

part of a plan to exact revenge for the
car-bomb killing of a terror mastermind
whom a former CIA agent called
“probably the most intelligent, most
capable operative we’ve ever run across,
including the KGB or anybody else.”
Kourani was, by his own multiple
admissions, trained in explosives and
small arms, along with secure
communications, survival and
interrogation as a member of
Hezbollah’s External Security
Organization (ESO), also known as the
Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO). Or
simply 910.

“Or Hezbollah black ops,” the FBI adds in

court papers.

PREPPERS
Feds: Hezbollah
Recruited American to
Be Sleeper Agent

Katie Zavadski
 Kourani was born in Lebanon in June
JOIN
1984 to a family he claims has
JOIN connections with Hezbollah. He has told
x

EXCLUSIVEtheCONTENT
FBI that his clan were “the bin
Ladens of Lebanon.” He was 16 when his
MY ACCOUNT
familial social stature enabled him to

LOG OUT attend a 45-day terror boot camp.

“During the training, Kourani was taught

to fire AK-47 assault rifles and rocket
launchers, as well as basic military
tactics, by Hezbollah personnel wearing
uniforms,” a subsequent criminal
complaint says.

In 2003, at the age of 19, he emigrated to

the U.S.. He lived in a two-family house
in Queens, and studied biomedical
engineering at the City University of
New York. The course of his life was to
change when Imad Mughniyah—second
in command of Hezbollah and founding
head of its military, intelligence and
security wing—was killed in Damascus
in 2008.

“These sleepers were

tasked to maintain
ostensibly normal lives
the world over who
could be tasked with
operational activity
should the ESO decide to
take action.”
— FBI
 Mughniyah was behind the 1983 truck
JOIN
bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut
JOIN that killed seven CIA operatives along
x

EXCLUSIVEwith
CONTENT
10 other Americans, as well as the
truck bombing of the Marine barracks
MY ACCOUNT
there later that year that killed 240. His

LOG OUT full list of killings includes the 1985

torture and murder of Beirut CIA station
chief  William Buckley, the torture and
killing of an American sailor aboard a
hijacked airliner later that year, and the
1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi
Arabia that killed 19 U.S. Air Force
personnel.

Add to that the killing of several

hundred Israelis. Not surprisingly,
Hezbollah blamed the U.S.and Israel for
the killing of its mastermind and vowed
revenge. Kourani would tell the FBI that
Hezbollah sought to do so by copying an
Israeli tactic that had long been used by
the Russians, and was later portrayed in
the TV series The Americans.

“Kourani stated that the ESO wanted to

copy the Israeli Mossad and sought to
recruit ‘sleepers,’” an FBI report says.
“These sleepers were tasked to maintain
ostensibly normal lives the world over…
[and] could be tasked with operational
activity should the ESO decide to take
action.”

Kourani was in Lebanon visiting his

family when a cleric in his home village
recruited him for the new effort, likely
because of his education and the fact
that he was already rooted in the U.S.. He
was a perfect candidate for a “sleeper,” a
 seemingly ordinary person leading a
 normal life who could be activated to
JOIN
carry out terrorist acts when called.
JOIN x
The new recruit was instructed to don a
EXCLUSIVEhelmet
CONTENT
with a blacked-out visor. He was

MY ACCOUNT
driven to meet the man who would
allegedly be his handler.
LOG OUT
“Whom Kourani knew as ‘Fadi,’” the
criminal complaint says. “Fadi typically
wore a mask during their meetings.”

The complaint details one of Fadi’s first

instructions: “Obtain United States
citizenship and a U.S. passport as soon as
possible.”

Kourani fulfilled the first part of that

mission in April of 2009. He applied for a
passport the following week, and for a
visa to China a week later. He is said to
have flown in to Guangzhou, the location
of a company that manufactures
purported first aid ice packs that contain
ammonium nitrate, an active ingredient
in explosives. A large number of these
“ice packs” would subsequently be found
in Hezbollah bomb factories in Thailand
and Cyprus. Guangzhou is also a major
center for counterfeit clothing, which
has been described as a major source of
income for Hezbollah.

That same month, Kourani received his

bachelor’s degree back in New York. He
went on to receive an MBA from Keller
Graduate School, making his cover all
the more convincing.

In 2011, Fadi summoned Kourani to

Lebanon for military training. He
returned to the U.S. and allegedly
followed Fadi’s instructions to identify
 possible sources of weapons and to
JOIN
research how to open businesses in New
JOIN York that Hezbollah could use.
x

EXCLUSIVE“AsCONTENT
cover for the storage of firearms

MY ACCOUNT
intended for ESO assassinations and
attacks in the U.S.,” the FBI report
LOG OUT explains.

Kourani was further asked to scout out

the security around the Israeli consulate
in New York and identify Jewish
businessmen in the city who were
former or current members of the Israeli
Defense Forces (IDF) for “either
assassination or recruitment purposes,”
according to the FBI report.

The list of surveillance targets is also

said to have included the federal
building in Manhattan where the FBI has
its offices and a Secret Service facility in
Brooklyn. Kourani allegedly made videos
of a U.S. Army Armory in Manhattan,
and JFK airport.

In the meantime, he and his wife had

two children. One of the kids triggered a
brief interruption in the e-mail
communications he maintained with his
handler via a Toshiba laptop. “His
daughter spilled something on it,” an FBI
report says.

The Toshiba was destroyed, but Kourani

purchased an Apple laptop and allegedly
continued his double life. He might have
been the perfect sleeper had he not gone
into the counterfeit clothing business. He
was caught with 190 pairs of Ugg boots
after he ran a stop sign in Queens in
November 2013.
 “I make about two dollars per pair,” the
JOIN
resulting police report quotes him
JOIN saying. “I buy them for 20 dollars.”
x

EXCLUSIVEThe
CONTENT
arrest prompted the NYPD

MY ACCOUNT
Intelligence Division to interview
Kourani on a number of occasions. He
LOG OUT came to the further attention of law
enforcement in September of 2015,
when arriving from a trip to Lebanon
back to the same airport he had
extensively surveilled.

“Law enforcement personnel

determined that Kourani’s cellphone did
not contain a memory card, but found a
memory card secreted under a travel
sticker affixed to Kourani’s U.S.
passport,” the complaint reports.

Kourani had gone seven years as an

alleged sleeper agent without being
activated in any operational capacity. He
deduced that the most likely reason was
Hezbollah’s 2015 discovery that
Mohammad Shawraba, the very man in
charge of external operations and the
revenge mission in particular, was an
Israeli mole. Shawraba was said to have
sabotaged numerous attack plans while
the sleeper agents slumbered on.

On April 1, 2016—“April’s Fools Day,”

Kourani would note—he stopped into his
regular Starbucks in Queens. A man
approached and showed him an FBI
badge.

“We know your affiliation with

Hezbollah,’” the agent said.

“You most likely have the wrong

person,” Kourani said.
 At a McDonald’s next door, the agent
JOIN
handed him a file folder containing a
JOIN cellphone.
x

EXCLUSIVE“I'm
CONTENT
going to reach you at that phone

MY ACCOUNT
number,” the agent said. “Make sure that
no one knows that you have that phone.”
LOG OUT
The FBI repeatedly called Kourani over
the days ahead to arrange meetings,
during which they urged him to become
an informant.

The day then came when an attorney

Kourani had retained left a voicemail
message with the FBI.

In a series of meetings at his lawyer’s

office, Kourani is said to have told the
agents about his life as a sleeper agent,
but the FBI remained convinced he was
not telling all he knew. The agents
sought to shake more out of him.

On June 1, 2018, the agents quietly

arrested him up in the Bronx, where he
was living with relatives after separating
from his wife. He was booked on eight
counts of terrorism-related offenses at
the same federal building he had
surveilled for Hezbollah, but waived a
court appearance and the criminal
complaint was sealed. He was held
overnight at a nearby Marriott Hotel.  

“We thought keeping him there in

custody versus in a prison would help
preserve the possibility of cooperation,”
the agent would testify.

The next day, the agents and prosecutors

concluded that Kourani was still holding
back and would not make a reliable
informant. He was brought to court and
 the criminal complaint against him was
JOIN
unsealed. He was held without bail.
JOIN x
Search warrants were executed for his
EXCLUSIVEemails
CONTENT
and internet history, as well as his

MY ACCOUNT
Bronx apartment above Naomi
Rodriguez. Agents there found lined
LOG OUT notebook paper on which Kourani
appeared to have handwritten notes in
English concerning what he wanted
from the FBI, including cash and an
apartment in a Manhattan building with
a doorman.

Kourani retained a new lawyer, Alexei

Schacht, who sought to suppress what
amounted to a multi-installment
confession. The judge ruled the
statements to the FBI admissible and
they are expected to be used against him
at the trial set to commence Monday.

“At the end of the day he

was still willing to
answer that phone call
and do what they asked.
... Being willing is just as
guilty.”
— Naomi Rodriguez

Up in the Bronx, Rodriguez told The

Daily Beast that Kourani was living
directly above her with a cousin and the
cousin’s teenage son.
 She described the teenager as, “a good
JOIN
kid… really good,” adding, “We don't
JOIN have an elevator. When I do food
x

EXCLUSIVEshopping,
CONTENT he helps me carry some bags
or helps me with the shopping cart.”
MY ACCOUNT
She could only remember seeing
LOG OUT Kourani once, as she is seldom home,
leaving early to work 12-hour shifts as
an EMT and returning late from
attending school to become a paramedic.
She is also raising two boys of her own,
aged 10 and 4.    

Of the accused terror sleeper agent who

was her upstairs neighbor, she observed,
“At the end of the day he was still willing
to answer that phone call and do what
they asked. You’re saying, ‘Okay, call me
when you need me.’”

She added, “Being willing is just as

guilty.”

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