So far, 2020 has brought the unexpected. But not every media circus of the year will be shocking. Case in point: Ron Jeremy is in jail because he’s formally—finally—been charged with sexual assault.
On Tuesday, the AP released video footage of Jeremy, 67, handcuffed and masked as he surrendered to an L.A. County court. He is facing “three counts each of forcible rape and forcible penetration by a foreign object and one count each of forcible oral copulation and sexual battery,” according to a criminal complaint, as quoted in USA Today. He’s been taken into custody following that initial court appearance with bail set at $6.6 million.
“Prosecutors allege Jeremy, 67, attacked a 25-year-old woman at a West Hollywood home in 2014. Prosecutors also accuse Jeremy of sexually assaulting two women at a West Hollywood bar in 2017 and raping a woman at the same bar in July 2019,” wrote James Queally and Richard Winton of the Los Angeles Times.
Commander Carlos Marquez of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department told the Times, “They were crimes of opportunity.” He further alleged that “Jeremy leveraged his public persona to gain access to the women, and then took advantage of them when they were intoxicated.”
Stuart Goldfarb, Jeremy’s attorney, spoke to reporters after the court appearance on Tuesday, where, wrote Anika Reed of USA Today, he declared that his client is “absolutely innocent of the charges. It’s not a close call.” Goldfarb continued: ““There is absolutely no reason for him to ever be aggressive with women…He’s had more women than you can count.”
This is unsurprising to people in the industry, who have heard the rumors about “the Hedgehog’s” gross behavior for years. In 2017, a number of women in and around the porn industry—myself included—came forward with allegations of sexual assault ranging from inappropriate touches to outright rape. These allegations were brought to light in a video by adult performer Ginger Banks and in a Rolling Stone article that detailed their experiences.
In due course, Jeremy was summarily banned from the AVN Entertainment Expo and Awards ceremony and from Exxxotica—two of the industry’s biggest events. And he’s become persona non grata in most porn circles since then.
Jeremy’s manager, Dante Ruscioletti, said that he will drop the porn legend as a client, but maintained that the 2017 allegations were false. “When Rolling Stone charged Ron with being in the ME TOO movement, he showed us proof against the allegations,” Rusciolelli said in a statement to CNN. But a Rolling Stone spokesperson said, “Contrary to Mr. Rusciolelli’s assertion, and despite his efforts over many years to bully Rolling Stone and [reporter] EJ Dickson into retracting the article, Rolling Stone was never given any proof of Jeremy’s innocence.”
The iconic porn star known as “the Hedgehog” will appear in court again on Friday for an arraignment, and following that, a trial will presumably be held. If convicted, he’ll face up to 90 years in prison, which for a man of Jeremy’s age would effectively be a life sentence.
