All Posts Tagged With: "Surgical International"

This Reads Like A Fanciful Dime Novel

Mary Lou McFate (Saprone), 62-year-old former flight attendant and sex counselor from Sarasota, Florida is accused in a deposition filed as part of a contract dispute involving a security firm of being a National Rifle Association spy while serving on two anti-gun organization boards of directors — according to an Associated Press story filed Tuesday. McFate’s alleged dual identity was first reported in an article published last week in Mother Jones magazine. Neither McFate nor the NRA have responded as of this writing.

McFate is said to have infiltrated an animal-rights group in the late 1980s and befriended an activist, Fran Trutt, who was later arrested for planting a remote controlled pipe bomb in the president of U. S. Surgical parking space. Apparently McFate called authorities before it could be detonated. Trutt plea bargained to a lesser sentence on the attempted murder charge. A search of her home found more bombs and a sawed off shotgun. Trutt accused McFate of coaxing her into the bombing plot. At that time McFate was acting as an undercover agent for a security firm working for Surgical International

McFate spent years as an unpaid board member of CeaseFirePA and an organization called States United to Prevent Gun Violence. She also twice pushed unsuccessfully to join the board of the nation’s largest gun-control group, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence according to the story.

If the allegation are true there are some circumstances that criminal laws could have been broken or maybe it was just sneaky and underhanded. But as for any secrets she might have been privy to, the gun-control groups said they have little to hide, since they put their message and information about their budgets on the Web.

The allegations against McFate stem from a lawsuit brought against officials with Beckett Brown International, a now-defunct security firm based in Maryland. A former beer distributor who bankrolled the firm accused them of defrauding him.

Bryan Miller, executive director of Ceasefire NJ, said he feels betrayed by McFate.” It’s so venal,”he said.

A Mother Jones blog says,”States United to Prevent Gun Violence, where gun lobby spy Mary Lou Sapone served until recently as the director of federal legislation-the organization’s chief federal lobbyist on gun control issues. In a news release the group expressed “shock and outrage at the news.”

ABC National News has ran an in-depth story about Mary “McFate,” also known as Mary Lou Sapone, it says is a paid informant by the NRA to spy on gun violence prevention organizations” according to an article on Stop Gun Deaths.org.

A story by UPI quotes as follows, “This reinforces what we have long known, that the gun lobby will go to any lengths, no matter how unethical, to protect the profits of the gun industry in this country,” said Angus McQuilken, whose organization, Freedom States Alliance, kicked “McFate” off its board after her true identity was learned.

What if anything McFate learned or what her exact mission was - if any remains wild speculation as does who was paying who and for what. At the point the whole thing reads like a shabby dime novel.