David L. Wadley, known as The Price Bandit, is the founder and president of The Price Bandit LLC. He has produced hundreds of classic R&B music videos on YouTube. Wadley is also the writer, producer, and director of Dark Angels (1998), the first feature released in what later became known as the Hard Faith movie genre. He challenged traditional Hollywood storytelling by creating the first faith-based gangster film. Dark Angels (1998) features a climactic battle between The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and a drug dealer, played by AJ Johnson, known for his role as Ezal in Friday (1995). After graduating from St. Peter Chanel High School in Cleveland, Ohio, Wadley made the Dean's List as a freshman at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Ernest Tidyman, a Cleveland journalist and Oscar-winning screenwriter of The French Connection (1971) and Shaft (1971), encouraged him to study film production in New York, New York. To support himself, He worked at The New York Hilton, The Plaza Hotel, and The Waldorf Astoria, where he interacted with notable hotel guests such as Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, and Jesse Jackson. While attending Hunter College, he lived in Harlem, first on 135th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, and later relocated to 147th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. Wadley interned in Harlem's 15th Congressional District under Representative Charles Rangel. Historically, he was the first student invited to participate as a guest panelist on the regionally televised City of N.Y. Internship Forum, where he discussed Race Relations in America with local politicians and noted political scientist Dr. Marilyn Gittell. Intrigued by his studies on the Civil Rights Movement, he arranged private discussions with Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz, the widows of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. After serving for several years as a firefighter in Atlanta, Georgia, Wadley's aspiration to work in the film industry led him to Los Angeles, California, where he secured positions at Panavision and Technicolor. He also worked as a production assistant on films produced by prominent filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Robert De Niro, and Melvin Van Peebles. His film credits include Panther (1995), Tales from the Hood (1995), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995), and Minority Report (2002). >Later, Wadley spent several years in Las Vegas, Nevada, working at Caesars Palace and MGM Grand. In November 2006, he joined the Surveillance Division of the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. In 2008, he secured a position with the U.S. federal government during the transition of Executive Branch control from President George W. Bush to President Barack Obama. Alongside his public service duties, he founded an organization called All Women Are Beautiful (AWAB) to provide public service information related to cultural diversity and inner beauty. Wadley used AWAB to assist with the preproduction, fundraising, and promotion of a film project, which led the film's producers to acknowledge him with "Special Thanks" in the closing credits of The Invisible War (2012), an investigative documentary about the epidemic of sexual assault within the U.S. military. Just two days after watching this groundbreaking film, former CIA Director and U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta directed military commanders to transfer all sexual assault investigations to higher-ranking colonels and announced that each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces would establish a Special Victims Unit. The Invisible War was lauded by advocates, lawmakers, and journalists for its influence on government policies to reduce the prevalence of rape in the United States Armed Forces.
