Outside regrets the error. He sounded like that guy from Despicable Me., Cusanno was paid $1,800 a week to train Air Force personnel. Jamie Smith is a legend in his own book, the controversial new memoir Gray Work: Confessions of an American Paramilitary Spy. Not long after that, Smith arrived at an Air Force training session in Fort Dix, still driving his big Mercedes. The jacket copy of Gray Work claims that Smith performed covert ops in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria. Smith often claims he earned an LLM in taxation, even listing the degrees BPA, JD, LLM under his byline in old SCG newsletters, but in court Smith admitted that he never finished. He sent a lawyer in one morning with a letter. Rush called an impromptu staff meeting to let his colleagues know, packed his things, and walked out. It was all done so easily and with no risk. Im not going to get into that work of fiction and dignify any of the specific rumors and allegations, but I wouldnt have been able to be in this business for 25 years if those types of things had been true., Aside from questions about Smiths CIA service, there also appear to be inconsistencies between his book and his previous stories. Perhaps God is hardening Pharoahs [sic] heart to glorify himself and bless his people. Sets Season 2 Premiere Get First Look at Chicago Homage. Tom Cruise plays a secret agent that goes on the run to uncover a rogue spy ring responsible for a series of disasters and assassinations. Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman create a fake war to cover up a presidential scandal in an election year in this dramedy. JFKs assassination made viewers more suspicious and thats reflected in our films He started small, advertising personal-protection services for wealthy international travelers. Those a**holes arent telling us anything thats going on, and I want you to damn well change that for meunderstand? Smith writes his chief told him. He hit the ground with a crisp salute, was introduced as a former Navy Seal, and told a Christian Broadcasting Network reporter that a stunt like his really energizes the congregation and emphasizes the risks being taken by servicemen and women around the world., The thing about Jamie is that he was certain about everything, says Charles Cusanno, a retired Pennsylvania state police officer and former SCG trainer. After all his co-workers are killed, a CIA agent, played by Robert Redford, doesn't know who he can trust as he tries to solve the mystery. After all, his friend was innocent until proven guilty. The Sanfords never saw their money again. John Carpenter directed this camp classic that sees a drifter discover a special pair of sunglasses that reveal that aliens have taken over the world. He gave you $12.5M for a reason, and He is now giving you a huge increase for a reason, and I firmly believe it is because of your long-standing commitment to your relationship with Him and the furtherance of His Kingdom.. Smith next paid off tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. The Will Smith and Gene Jackman thriller tells the story of a group of NSA agents who conspire to kill a Congressman and the cover up that ensues after a tape of the murder is discovered. What Ive seen, from materials that Jamie gave me, actually ended up raising more questions, Johnson said. Joe Fantasy Camp, and for good reason. They did so in the belief that he was an ex-CIA officer, a Harvard Law graduate with a degree in accounting, and a man with heavy government ties. We provide services for those same groups in the form of training, security, and information collection., The e-mail worked: Smith established communications with Stratfor officials. Portfolio Services About Blog Contact Open Menu Close Menu. Combining a keen eye for humor, and impeccable sense of timing, and one of the most genuine . But this was serious business, too. Then he flipped the questioning. I had no idea what kind of book he was going to write.. Many things about Smithincluding his CIA past and his military backgroundappear to be elaborate fabrications. The trouble was that Smith needed money to raise the companys profile. Our campaign is focused on SD because we firmly believe the DC-style politics conducted by our current governor is not what our state is about. In October 2012 the government shut down his lucrative contracting business. Plus Jamie has been in this business for a quarter century. Former SCG employees later found themselves online, featured in a training video for a new company called Gray Solutions. the DROK, a make-believe Islamic country filled with terrorists, double agents, and an insane vigilante police force. Jamie Smith is registered to provide investment advice and transact in Mutual Funds and Securities in the Province of Newfoundland & Labrador. Join Outside+ to get Outside magazine, access to exclusive content, 1,000s of training plans, and more. He went on from there, saying hed worked as a CIA instructor, assigned to teach sniping and surveillance to federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies and for the State Department in the Middle East. It was a complete fantasy world, says Cusanno. There were pricey dinners, child-support payments for his brother, Todd (who later became SCGs vice president), school tuition for Smiths kids, and gun purchases. It was hard, Smith said, to return to school a semester behind his classmates. Big haired, charismatic, and a Regent University law grad like Smith, Titus took to organizing asset-protection seminars to lure investors. Email Jamie Smith. According to credit card statements released during the Sanford case, Smith was spending a lot of his time and money in Hawaii during this period. Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier starred. Smith handed over a promissory note that said the money would be returned in 18 months, with interest. :). Gray Work was published in April by HarperCollins imprint William Morrow and Company, which moved forward with the book, claiming that the CIA itself vetted the manuscript. Smith loved telling friends and potential clients the story of a mission he ran, which supposedly involved rescuing Pelton from a right-wing paramilitary group in Colombia. Gray Work represents a first of sorts in the publishing world. Usually what happens is you end up publishing it and then it pops up at you., What I would hope happensand it seems to me happens pretty much in every instancewhen the publishers find that [a book] has real flaws, problems, or inaccuracies, most often they end up taking it off the market. As for any lasting fallout from the fakes that make it through, Entrekin calls the backlash just another tiny chip in the wall., After the Outside article appeared, Baerwho is featured on the jacket and within the textassumed that the book would be buried. Red Planet Entertainment teams with Pathbender to option the nonfiction book Gray Work. Jamie Smith is an Investment Advisor and agent of Aligned Capital Partners Inc. (ACPI). X-Files (1998) Plans were thwarted. Jamie Smith is an Investment Advisor and agent of Aligned Capital Partners Inc. (ACPI). We were supposed to take him at his word. If Smith is telling the truth, it would make him a CIA superstara spy whose work was so extraordinary even veteran spooks think it sounds like a deception. He could have used the cash to build SCG into a sustainable business that earned consistent profits. 9/27/2022 3:25:23 PM. Because the CIA operates in the shadows of public disclosure, the agency doesnt comment on former employees. Smiths public relations representative, Steve Honig, gave The Daily Beast an almost identical comment. Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier starred. Jamie Smith, a self-described CIA operative and co-founder of private military company Blackwater, has optioned his just-published memoir Gray Work: Confessions of an American Paramilitary Spy to Red Planet Entertainment and Pathbender, TheWrap has learned. I cant get into that, because its part of the book, and the agencys still reviewing that.. Jamie Smith says he was recruited into the CIA as an undergraduate at Ole Miss, cofounded Blackwater, and has done clandestine intelligence work all over the world, operating out of a counterterrorism boot camp in the woods of north Mississippi. As well see, that arrangement also led to nothing but frustration for Smiths clients. Another: Never give up your cover story. As for the Air Force training, its unclear who exactly went through it. They didnt even like to send me to the State Department when I was a GS-15 with 20 years in. Jamie Smith is known for Killer's Kiss (1955), The Faithful City (1952) and Suspense (1949). He said the book passed through HarperCollinss legal vetting and the CIA review board with the manuscript going back and forth at least five times. He was clean-cut, with perfect hair. We were here for 20-hour days.. Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts star. According to Smiths own account in the Stratfor e-mails, he got over there anyway. In the summer of 2009, Rush says, Smith came clean to him during a car ride from the compound to Holly Springs. A 20-year-old sent to liaison? Previous Slide This wasnt the first time Fisher had confronted his friend. I mean, whos the guy or the girl behind you guys digging into me like Im, you know, Oliver Stone?, Asked about the Sanfords, Smith stuck to his story that he never met Craig Sanford before he received their money. Period, Johnson said. Plenty of people believed him, including the Air Force (which paid him $7 million to train personnel . Smith had hired him in 2009 to manage the business, but not long after his tenure SCG was already starting to have trouble meeting payroll, and it fell behind on payments to contractors fixing up the Holly Springs training center. Smiths staff and clients believed he was a decorated spook and battle-tested warrior. The chief just asked me to basically spy on another government agency., No way the CIA would do that, according to agency veteran James Hughes. Scandals over fabricated narratives, from James Frey to Somaly Mam, have rocked the publishing industry in recent years, but none of their troubles seem to have significantly changed the way publishers operate when it comes to making sure an author has his facts straight. Former SCG trainers like Cusanno and Watts says Smith loved action and loved the game-playing aspects of SCG most of all: the paintball fights, the secret meetings, the rescue missions in the shoot house. He claimed to have no memory of an e-mail sent from his own account that said: Craig, it was good to meet you last week and Im excited about the investment arrangement we discussed and agreed to on Wednesday of that week.. Nor is the blurb that appears on Gray Work exactly what Baer provided. In 2011, a federal jury in Virginia handed down an almost $10 million judgment against Smith after finding that he had funded his fledgling company, SCG LLC, by defrauding a retired Pennsylvania couple out of their lifes savings. Among the roughly two dozen documents Oliver sent to The Daily Beast were letters of support of Smiths operations in Libya and Syria from a congresswoman; a certificate showing a black belt in martial arts; a media badge Smith says was his cover for an intelligence-gathering mission for a classified agency during which he was shot in 2004; and a folder stamped with Orientation Program, along with a stapled packet containing a schedule. HarperCollins did not deny Baers assertion that he was never contacted by the publisher despite his blurb appearing on the books back cover. George Clooney and Matt Damon star in this international thriller that took a look at the global influence of the oil industry and their shady politics. I would put my hand on a stack of Bibles and say, Absolutely, I was an officer at the Central Intelligence Agency at age 21, Smith told us during an interview in April. Jamie Smith is a decorated former CIA officer, founding Director of Blackwater Security, Vice President of Blackwater Training and subsequently the CEO of SCG International. We did a great job, he said, everyone was happy., When asked how he managed to become a government spy only two years out of South Panola high, he said, Thats in the book. I know God has honored your faith and compassion in this situation and I am confident that He will continue to do so, Titus wrote in June 2009, several weeks after the note was due. Sanford admits he wasnt thinking clearly in those days, but it was a strange time, and everything happened fast. Baer meanwhile said his quote was never an approved blurb., I sent the quote to his agent about three years ago, but it wasnt meant for publication and it didnt relate to any non-fiction book I knew about, Baer said. He looked like a government guy, he recalls, talking in a straight-ahead Philly accent. Smith represents District 15, which covers downtown neighborhoods, including areas around Terrace Park and the Great Plains Zoo, [2] in Sioux Falls. Smiths rsum and his claims were never part of the pitch for government contracts, Rush says. Some of the men who came to train had seen him on CNN, Fox, or MSNBC, appearing as an expert on security and counterterrorism. As of February 2009, Smiths accounts still held $2.6 million of the Sanfords original $12.5 million. We found 15 records for Jamie Smith in Castalia, Arnolds Park and 9 other cities in Iowa. I got a special case Im working for them., It was seamless, Sanford says. The Marvel Studios produced film stars Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson. In it, Smith addressed his correspondence to founder George Friedman and Stratfor Team., My background is CIA, he wrote, and our company is comprised of former DOD, CIA and former law enforcement personnel. The Sanfords werent the only people who say they were taken in. It left him unconvinced. One more article isnt going to hurt.. It just doesnt happen. As if anticipating the incredulity of future readers, Smith goes on. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Jamie believes we are strongest when we work together to get things done. Titus had not been allowed to practice law for four years, but he did a lot of legal work for Smith anyway. Running for re-election in District 15! Jamie Smith is attempting to roll back his statement where he claims there was a misinterpretation of his words that he wants "more things to tax." But, taking him at face value, recognizing the words that came out of his mouth, I think it's very valid to question what his intentions are in making that statement. Records reviewed by The Daily Beast indicate that Smith quit an ROTC summer training program in June 1993. Yet, a few years ago, it was almost over for Smith. The period between 2008 and 2010 were high times at SCG, when the company was awarded contracts from the Air Force that totaled $7.3 million. Smith addressed the Sanford case in Gray Work, giving it one paragraph in the almost 400-page memoir, less space than he spent on a bowel movement in a previous chapter. We tried to contact them several times about future plans for the book, with no response. Warner Bros. On February 15, 2011, Smith sent an e-mail to an open account at Stratfor, an Austin, Texas, intelligence and consulting firm. Smith declined to discuss this episode with Outside, but Pelton verifies that Smith was wounded in 2004, when he was traveling near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. 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