APOPKA, FL — The producer of a live adult entertainment website who aspired to create a mainstream reality TV show was arrested over the weekend and charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment after he allegedly held several women against their will.Marc Brilleman, 33, of Windermere, Fla., was both arrested and released on Saturday after posting a $3,000 bond. According to published reports, he has threatened to file lawsuits against four of the eight women who were to appear in Pauper to Princess, a never-aired reality series that purported to give downtrodden women a new outlook and new lives. Brilleman told WFTV News the women broke their contracts with him.
Police arrested Brilleman, who they said was one of the principals in Dream House Productions Inc., after four of the women fled the house and complained that Brilleman wouldn’t allow them to leave or call their families. Dream House allegedly also used the house to stream live VoyeurDorm-like sexual content through a website billed as “the X-Rated Dream House.”
Brilleman, a native of South Africa whose immigration status is unclear according to police, has denied any wrongdoing.
According to the reality show’s website, the contestants on Pauper to Princess were offered $500 per week for the 13 weeks of a Big Brother-style contest that started in February. The women were to live in the house full-time for the entirety of the project. The winner was to be awarded $50,000, the use of a BMW sedan for a year, and a modeling contract. The second- through fourth-place finishers were promised a $1,000 bonus at the end of their 13-week commitment.
The contestants were picked in early February during auditions at the University of Central Florida and the country-western bar Cowboys Orlando.
“They have been there since February during the week,” Apopka Police Commander Jerome Miller told WFTV. “On weekends, they had been free to leave, but [last weekend] Brilleman said they could not leave because they were being disciplined.”
Miller also noted Brilleman may have told the women they could not leave under the terms of their contracts. According to the police report, the women were upset because they had not been paid, although a contract provided to reporters by Brilleman’s attorney reportedly said payment was not due to commence until after the sixth week of filming.
Some of the contestants also reported what they called abuse.
“Some of the tasks, umm, one of them included being tied at the wrists, together,” contestant Alisha Waismann told WFTV. “We had to feed each other, go to the bathroom together. A lot of us had red marks where he tied us up.”
However, Tameka Jackson, a woman paid to chaperone the contestants, disputed the women’s claims, telling reporters “I have no idea why they wanted to leave because I live there and they gave me no inclination that they were uncomfortable or that they wanted to leave.”
Jackson also said she was one of the models in the X-Rated Dream House project.
According to Police Chief Chuck Vavrek, Dream House Productions was operating in a residential area without permits and may face sanctions for that. Pauper to Princess executive producer James C. Johnson told Florida Crime News that he approached several local agencies but officials assured him no permits were required.
After Saturday’s events, Dream House Productions decided to cancel the filming since the show has not been picked up by a television network.
