Perfect Cover: Premise:
The harrowing story of New York’s first female undercover police officer.
About Our Story:
In the early 1970’s New York City was a powder keg with a very short fuse. There were daily marches against the ignominious winding down of the Vietnam War, the Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew, resigned amid numerous scandals, and the President himself, Richard Nixon, was soon to follow. New York City itself teetered on the precipice of bankruptcy, while it s streets were awash in heroin as a result of the theft of evidence from the legendary French Connection case. The city’s racial fabric was frayed, as white police officers were being targeted for murder by shadowy urban terror groups, Puerto Rican separatists were bombing New York landmarks, and Harlem was perpetually in flames, as disenfranchised black youths treated social and political institutions as targets. Counter-culture musical icons Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix died within six months of each from drug overdoses, while feminist authors Germaine Greer and Erica Jong attacked the male dominated business and political bureaucracies for systemically excluding women from the corridors of power. Amidst this cacophony of social upheaval, the Napp Commission released a bombshell report, claiming that New York’s law enforcement system was so institutionally corrupt that, without major change, the city itself could spiral into anarchy.
In response to the thunderclap of the Napp Commission’s report—and the revelations of whistle-blower cop, Frank Serpico-- the New York Attorney General’s office established a secretive Special Prosecutors Office (SPO), staffing it with its own investigators, prosecutors, and judges—all operating out of the boundaries of the normal law enforcement channels--in an attempt to root out the rampant corruption in New York’s political, judicial, and police establishment. It was a new war that required new rules, and new players.
One of those new players was Joyce St. George.
A young woman from the projects, who grew up in the mean streets of the city, daughter of an Italian father and Puerto Rican mother, Joyce not only was the first in her family to make it into college, she became the first woman recruited by the SPO to work deep cover in pursuit of mafia-controlled judges and politicians, and corrupt cops who not only objected to being investigated by anyone outside their own system, but the idea of being knocked down by a young woman was an incendiary concept to the entire NYPD..
So desperate was the SPO to bring in investigators who weren’t already tainted by the system, that they plunged Joyce St. George directly into some of the most dangerous investigations in the history of American law enforcement—dangerous because the people Joyce was investigating were the keepers of the keys to the city, the people who made the laws and enforced them.
It required the idealism, and sometimes naivety, of youth for Joyce to believe she could penetrate decades of corruption within the city’s entrenched institutions.
Perfect Cover is Joyce’s story, a journey that put her in the midst of mafia bars, walking the tightrope of deception as she tracked crooked cops and judges, and forced her to test the limits of her own beliefs and ideals. Even Joyce’s father, who devoted his life to giving her the opportunity to elevate herself out of the projects, challenged the wisdom of his daughter’s David vs. Goliath battle against corruption.
In the mid 1990’s, Joyce St. George, in collaboration with novelist Linda Chase, wrote a fictionalized version of her experiences in the SPO, entitled PERFECT COVER, used as the basis for this story, along with Joyce’s personal recollections. As in the novel, the fictional version of Joyce in our film is named Tina Paris.
Dopey Cowboy Films LLC is in the business of producing motion pictures and is currently raising capital to develop and produce a feature length film with the working title, Perfect Cover. Investors are only responsible for the amount of money they decide to invest, and are not accountable for other debts or obligations. Investors will be repaid their initial investment before anyone else receives anything from the project.
Email brad@dopeycowboyfilms.com for details.
Dopey Cowboy Films LLC
PO Box 8216
New York, New York 10116