Danielle Staub's Past Set As Fall Series

NYPost.com:

Somebody warn Danielle Staub, the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” misfit, that her story is about to become a new TV series.


The out-of-print crime book, “Cop Without a Badge,” that came back to haunt her -- outlining her past arrest for drug and kidnapping charges -- has been put into development by a major Hollywood studio, according to a new posting yesterday on IMDB, the show-business Internet directory.


Sony Pictures, producers of “Seinfeld,” “Breaking Bad” and “Damages,” is shopping the series to several networks for a fall 2012 start.


The book is about former con-man Kevin Maher, who was recruited out of prison in the 1980s to become an undercover informant for the New York Police Department and FBI.


Danielle -- then living under her birth name, Beverly Merrill -- was Maher’s girlfriend during those years. He met her in Miami while she was out on bail on drug and kidnapping charges, according to the book.


No stars will be hired until at least early next year, when Sony is set to make a pilot of the series.


The book -- which includes a grainy-but-unmistakable mug shot of Danielle -- had been long out of print until one of the New Jersey “Housewives” reportedly found it in a local library.


It became one of the major bones of contention in the reality show’s first season when the matriarch “Housewife” Caroline Manzo brandished the book at a dinner party with Danielle. Because of Danielle’s sordid past outlined in it, she was not allowed to join their social circle, the “Housewives” said.


The TV series is set to be written by veteran TV writer David Black, a “Law & Order” alumnus with a list of credits that goes back to “Miami Vice,” and Charles Kipps, a former “Cosby Mysteries” writer and author of the Conor Bard series of mystery books.


Since the “Jersey Housewives” notoriety, the book has been re-published.


Insiders say NBC may be the most likely candidate to pick up the series because it owns Bravo, the cable channel that created the “Real Housewives” franchise.


Danielle left the “Jersey Housewives” series last year.


She spent her final season no longer trying to get into the group of well-to-do Franklin Lakes women but going to war with them at social functions and through the local gossip jungle telegraph system.