UNDERCOVER CONVICT

1. UNDERCOVER CONVICT

2. SHOW STATS • Format: One-Hour Crime Drama • Tone: A west coast version of Donnie Brasco, The Departed, State Of Grace • World: Far away from the Vietnam War protests, sing-a-longs and sit-ins at Berkeley campus, UNDERCOVER CONVICT is centered in the underbelly of San Francisco at the end of the 1960s. The City was teeming with organized crime. During this time, the classic syndicates like the Lanza Family (Italian Mafia) and WahChing (Chinese Triad) were causing havoc, but they weren’t alone. The Bay area in the late 60s was also home to the Weather Underground, the Hells Angels, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Black Guerilla Family, the Black Panthers, and the National Socialist League. These groups were in a war with each other, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and the FBI. They were all dangerous. They were all deadly. • Our Series begins after the 17th under cover cop from the SFPD is found floating by the iconic Golden Gate bridge. Even with a joint task force with the FBI, the good guys were losing the war. They needed to find solution… A marine-turned-convict is recruited by the men that imprisoned him to infiltrate the criminal world outside the prison walls.

3. Characters

4. THE UNDERCOVER CONVICT John Boyd Mackey James Boyd Mackey: Is a charismatic charmer, an ambitious self-promoter, and a cunning calculating liar. He could sell ice to the Eskimos, rise to the top ranks of the prison hierarchy a few months after incarceration, or infiltrate any domestic terrorist group or anarchist gang in San Francisco during the 60s and 70s. Always the smartest man in the room, Mackey has his own code of ethics and thrives on bending and occasionally breaking all of societies rules. Mackey was diagnosed as a high functioning criminal sociopath. The world gave him gifts to make it his oyster and he used them. The only thing standing in his way was himself. His Backstory: After being arrested for manslaughter, Mackey used his unique abilities in manipulation that he referred to as “the game” to ascend the prison hierarchy. Little did he know was that this abilities would be his ticket out of prison, but into an even more dangerous situation. Bill Hanken, prison guard and officer of the SFPD watched as Mackey weaved his web around all of the inmates and prison staff through his liesand charisma. Within a year, Mackey even had the beautiful prison psychologist under his spell. And even though he is serving a life-sentence, she recommended him for parole.

5. THE PSYCHATRIST JESSICA SIMMONS M.D. JESSICA SIMMONS M.D.: Is an empathetic prison psychiatrist with a difficult home life who finds purpose in the rehabilitation of prisoners sentenced to life-in-prison. Ever since she was little, she always saw the good in people regardless of their pasts. This hopeless optimism was the perfect trait to return day-after-day to San Quentin correctional facility to meet with her patients/prisoners. However, because passion was lacking in her home life – she sought it in her relationships with her patients. This is when she met Mackey. Her Backstory: Simmons met Mackey when he killed a fellow inmate in self-defense and was issued mandatory therapy with his increased sentence of life in prison. During every visit, the connection between them grew and her reports to the parole board reflected her feelings for him. They started a secret relationship within the confines of her therapy room within San Quentin. When Mackey came up for parole because of his consistent reviews of “good behavior,” the only question that was left between them was – “would this continue on the outside.” As Mackey goes undercover, this is the one relationship that could get him killed. Will he continue to pursue it?

6. PRISON GUARD/SFPD OFFICER Officer: Bill Hanken Bill Hanken:San Quentin’s head guard is good at his job because the only thing that’s different between him and the most vicious sociopath in San Quentin is the fact that he’s wearing the badge. He operates without remorse and follows the doctrine of control, order, and most of all… punishment. Hanken’s walked a hard road to get where he is in life and his face and lack of relationships outside of work attest to it. His Backstory: Bill Hanken started out in the SFPD, but his propensity to use excessive force put him at odds with the community he was protecting. His superiors were unwilling to discharge him, but found suitable arrangements for someone of his personality to thrive in law enforcement. At San Quentin. Hanken embraced the opportunity, aligned himself with the head inmates and took a cut from the illegal drugs entering the prison. When work was over, he still frequented the same pool halls and police hang outs that he did when he was actually dressing down in his police blues. When Mackey entered San Quentin, Hanken didn’t pay to much attention to him until he ascended to the top of the prison food chain cutting Hanken out of the profits. Hanken needed to remove him After a few conversations with his boys at SFPD and the FBI, he finds the perfect place for Mackey.

7. THE FBI AGENT Agent: Michael Stone Michael Stone: The man you take home to meet your parents. Highly accomplished, a true patriot, and honest. Stone dots every “I” and crosses every “T”. However, his unwavering disposition is being challenged and the man with all the answers is running out of them as the criminal groups he has been tasked to infiltrate are getting the better of him. His Backstory: The product of an all-American upbringing and the perfect recruit for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was an Eagle Scout who attended the Citadel and was recruited to the Bureau the moment he finished his military service. After a few years with the Bureau, Stone got his big break when he was assigned to oversee a joint-task force in the San Francisco area with the SFPD to infiltrate gangs, mafias, and domestic terrorist groups that were cropping up in the bay area. 17 undercover agents went missing or were killed under his watch and Stone’s shine was fading. The Bureau is expecting results and Stone is getting a little desperate. Out of this desperation, Stone agrees to do something that is not only illegal, but incredibly dangerous. He pulls a murderer and known sociopath out of jail to become his 18th undercover agent.

8. Concept

9. Undercover Convict- Introduction/Episode1: Bill Hankenand Jessica Simmons list examples of Mackey’s good behavior as we cut to moments of Mackey involved in several inhumane acts in prison. The parole board stamps his release papers. Mackey is free. Whistling as he walks out of San Quentin, Mackey is forcibly shoved into an unmarked car with several FBI agents including Agent Michael Stone and Hanken. Driven to an FBI safe house, Mackey is thrown into a make shift interrogation/war room. He glances around the walls as he sees familiar and notorious pictures of well known San Francisco criminal groups and members. Hankenleads as he reads from a huge binder that goes over all of his observations of Mackey’s rise in prison as we cut back to moments of Mackey’s time there Stone adds to the biography with incidences in the military, school, and even his juvenile record. All of this is leading to… the proposal. They need Mackey. His skills and criminal associations make him the best candidate to go undercover. Stone first attempts to convince him to do it for his country, but Hanken knows better – if Mackey doesn’t comply or runs, they’re going to put him in a really tiny hole and throw away the key. An offer Mackey cannot refuse.

10. Undercover Convict- Season(s)1: Each season will follow Mackey as he infiltrates one of the gangs, domestic terrorist groups, or mafias in the Bay area. We watch as the master of manipulation befriends, commits crimes with, evades detection by, and inevitably betrays the groups that have grown to call him one of their own. The seasons progress as the wear of being undercover starts to take a toll on Mackey psychologically and physically. The danger is mounting and discovery that he is an informant is inevitable. As the work weighs on Mackey, he becomes darker, drinks more and acts impulsively in situations as opposed to the calculated man we first met. These impulses translate into acts of violence where he will kill a member of the group that he has infiltrated just because he dubs them too evil. His handlers applaud this behavior and Mackey then operates with the knowledge that anything he does is okay. He is untouchable… as long as he stays alive.

11. Organized Crime Groups

12. San Francisco Mafia (The Lanza Family): The Lanza family rose to power after a four-year gang war in 1932, and remained the most influential crime family in San Francisco for decades. In the 1960s and 70s, they were lead by James Lanza, the most successful don in the history of the city. An extremely cautious man, Lanza kept his organization particularly contained, operating with only 20 to 25 made men, and frequently refusing to accept new blood for fear of turncoats and police informants. He once ran Los Angeles family capo AladenaFratianno out of the city when he risked bringing attention to the Lanza family. Despite his paranoia, Lanza kept close ties to families across the nation, most notably the New York based Genovese family through mutual ties in Las Vegas. Things began to fall apart for the Lanza family in the 90s as a series of raids took down many of their chief operations. James Lanza survived these hard times, ultimately dying of natural causes at over a hundred years old.

13. The National Socialist League: Founded in 1974 by Los Angeles-based Russell Veh, the National Socialist league was an exclusively homosexual subset of the Neo-Nazi movement. While several branches opened and operated throughout northern California, the organization found the most traction in San Francisco. Classified ads in the gay newspaper Bay AreaReporter would openly recruit for “The Gay Nazis” and declare their “determination to seek sexual, social, and political freedom” for the Aryan race. The NSL was particularly well known for reviving Nazi propaganda and anti-Semitic hate films and printed their own journal called NS Kampfruf. Ultimately, the group fell apart in the 1980s and faded into obscurity.

14. The Aryan Brotherhood As racially segregated prisons began to dissolve in the 1960s, many prisoners formed alliances along racial lines. The Aryan Brotherhood was formed in California's San Quentin State Prison specifically to strike against the militant group called the Black Guerrilla Family. In the 1970s, the group also formed ties with the Manson family, spreading their influence through Family members outside the prison system. The relationship ultimately dissolved when the Manson Family grew “too leftist.” The modern Brotherhood has grown beyond merely race-based killing, rivaling even organized crime families' influence inside the prison system through drug trafficking, prostitution, and arranged murder.

15. The Hells Angels The exact origins of the Hells Angels is unclear. It is suggested that several motorcycle groups across the nation adopted the name independently before amalgamating into a larger group. The chapter that would eventually determine the direction of the Hells Angels was organized in 1953 by Rocky Graves in the Oakland and San Francisco area. As the organization grew, it became engraved in the counterculture of the 60s and 70s, famously having ties with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, and launching the career of Hunter S. Thompson. While officially designated a criminal organization by the US Department of Justice, group officials maintain that the Hells Angels in no way promote violence or criminal activity; they merely recruit a statistically high number of individuals who do. While also not officially racially biased, the enrollment process is largely mandated by existing members, who reportedly avoid black applicants as well as anyone with an interest, past or present, in law enforcement. The club has also embraces a legendary comment that “99 percent of all motorcyclists are law-abiding citizens” by declaring themselves the one percent.

16. Organized in 1969 as an offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society, the Weathermen were a group of radical students that set out to inspire a militarized youth uprising to overthrow the US government. Protesting imperialist values showcased in the Vietnam war and institutional racism at home, the group based itself on the idea that those who do not oppose tyranny must take responsibility for their actions. Over several years, the group committed, both first-hand and through support of other radical groups, a number of bombings on government facilitates with the hope that by bringing the effects of war to the home front the population would be forced to rise up and overthrow the government. After a failed summit attempting to unite all radical groups under a single banner, the Weathermen lost momentum in the mid 70s. An FBI investigation into the group was botched and, among charges of civil rights infractions, members of the group were offered amnesty or greatly reduced charges if they turned themselves in. The Weathermen leadership did so, and the group faded into obscurity.

17. WahChing AKA The Triad A Chinese American Triad Society, the WahChing rose to power by absorbing smaller Asian gangs in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Since the 1960s, they have operated illegal gambling dens, extortion rings, drug trafficking, and planned murders. Among their criminal enterprises was a system of dockworkers and corrupt police officers in the waterfront who would aid with smuggling illegal goods into San Francisco; their gateway to the entire Western United States. The WahChing still operates to this day, though their former ideology of Chinese purity has grown less restrictive. The Chinese Mob WahChing was paying the "Waterfront" (crooked Longshoremen whom Mackey infiltrated) for TWO main things: (1) Moving prostitutes from China, through S.F., and on to Vegas; and (2) When a Chinese Mob Boss from China needed to come in for a meeting, the Waterfront arranged for him to enter the country without doing it through immigration so there were no records of the Chinese Big-Wig ever being in the U.S.

18. The Black Guerilla Family The Black Guerrilla Family (aka The Black Family or The Black Vanguard) is a prison and street gang founded in 1966 by George Jackson and W.L. Nolen while they were incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison. Inspired by Marcus Garvey, the Black Guerrilla Family was characterized as an ideologically based African-American Marxist revolutionary organization composed of prisoners. It was founded with the stated goal of eradicating racism, maintaining dignity in prison, and overthrowing the United States Government. Allies -- BGF was associated with a number of leftist groups, including the Crips, The Bloods, The Black Liberation Army, SymbioneseLiberation Army, and the Weather Underground.

19. The Black Panther Party Founded in 1966 in response to lackluster law enforcement and protection in black neighborhoods, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was originally an empowering black-nationalist movement. Teaching community members self-defense and reporting on police patrols that failed to follow procedures, the group became more political as leaders began viewing black nationalism as a form of “black racism” and became more revolutionary in its policies. Extremists began performing armed patrols of black neighborhoods and criminal elements began violent attacks on local police prompting FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to declare the party “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” The party maintained a strong influence over Oakland politics through the 60s and early 70s, but as reports of criminal activity including drug dealing and extortion were exposed, public support began to decline. The group went through a period of internal struggle, defections, and expulsions and by the 1980s dwindled to a mere 27 members across the entire country.

20. UNDERCOVER CONVICT Contact: Benjamin Anderson, EVP, Phoenix Pictures E: banderson@phoneixpictures.com O: 424.298.2408