Hollywood

[P.O.]

Child sexual abuse cases in Hollywood attract attention
At least a dozen child molestation and child pornography prosecutions
since 2000 have involved actors, managers, production assistants and
others in the entertainment industry.


January 8, 2012, 7:37 p.m.

In his private journal, Jason Michael Handy once described himself as
a "pedophile, full blown."

Handy snapped more than 1,000 photos of girls at the elementary school
across the street from his house, using a camera with a telephoto
lens, according to court documents. He volunteered at a Malibu church,
where he worked with 6-year-olds. And his job as a production
assistant at one of the nation's most prominent producers of
children's television programs, Nickelodeon, gave him access to child
actors on and off the set, and allowed him to exchange email addresses
and phone numbers with them.


Handy was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading no contest
in 2004 to two felony counts, one of lewd acts on a child and one of
distributing sexually explicit material by email, and to a misdemeanor
charge related to child sexual exploitation. His arrest and
prosecution received scant media attention at the time but are
attracting renewed interest now, after the recent arrest of a talent
manager on molestation charges and reports by The Times that a
registered sex offender was working with children as a casting
associate.

The Handy case, which in part prompted Nickelodeon to toughen its
background checks for all employees, is among at least a dozen child
molestation and child pornography prosecutions since 2000 involving
actors, managers, production assistants and others in the industry,
according to court documents and published accounts.

Advocates and professionals who work with victims of child sexual
abuse say predators exploit the glittery lure of Hollywood to prey on
aspiring actors or models. They assert that the problem is more
widespread than the industry is willing to acknowledge and have called
for tougher laws and better screening of those who represent or work
with children.

"Unlike other settings, such as Little League, Scouts, day care and
school volunteers, where adults who have unsupervised access to
children are required to comply with fingerprinting requirements,
there are no such standards in the entertainment industry," said Paula
Dorn, co-founder of the BizParentz Foundation, a nonprofit group for
families of child actors.

The most recent case involves Martin Weiss, a longtime talent manager
who specialized in representing young actors. He was arrested Nov. 29
and charged with eight felonies stemming from his alleged abuse of a
boy who came to him for help in pursuing a music career. He is being
held on $800,000 bail.

Weiss' arrest came within weeks of a report that a man who was
convicted of child molestation and abduction 15 years ago had been
helping to cast young actors in major Hollywood films, using a
different name than the one listed in the sex offender registry .
Jason James Murphy, 35, faces felony charges of failing to file name
and address changes with authorities.

The recent arrests prompted a bill, expected to be filed this month
with the California Assembly, that would require licensing and
criminal background checks for those who work with actors under age
16. It would prohibit registered sex offenders from serving as child
managers, photographers, career counselors or publicists.

"Under the existing law, talent agents are regulated; however, casting
directors, managers and photographers are not. This loophole makes it
very easy for a predator to gain access to children working within the
entertainment industry," said the bill's sponsor, Assemblywoman Nora
Campos (D-San Jose).

Experts say addressing the problem is overdue.

"This is just like the Catholic Church pretending that priests never
molested people in the past," said Dr. Daniel D. Broughton, a
pediatrician at the Mayo Clinic and expert on child sexual abuse.
"What's surprising to me is why it hasn't come out even stronger and
sooner."

Some instances of child sexual exploitation have received considerable
attention, such as the one involving Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman
Polanski, who pleaded guilty in 1977 to having sex with a 13-year-old
girl but fled to Europe before sentencing.

A number of other cases involve lesser-known assailants employed at
all levels of the industry — from the set tutor in Vancouver, Canada,
who worked on nearly 50 films and was convicted of child sexual
assault to the acting coach from Georgia who contacted an 11-year-old
girl over the Internet and enticed the aspiring actress and her
sibling to meet him in Los Angeles, where he molested the girl.

Some of the cases illustrate how a more rigorous screening process
could have detected adults who posed a danger to young actors.

The Los Angeles Police Department had been monitoring child manager
Bob Villard even before 1987, when he was among nine people indicted
by a federal grand jury in New Jersey on charges of transporting child
pornography, according to published accounts. He was convicted but,
upon appeal, the charges against him fell apart because prosecutors
had been unable to produce the sexually explicit images at trial.

Villard was again accused of child pornography in 2001, after searches
of his home uncovered thousands of photographs of boys in skimpy
bathing suits posed in sexually suggestive positions, police said. He
pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years
of probation.

Throughout this period, Villard touted his work with aspiring young
actors, some of whom would later become major Hollywood stars — among
them Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio and Danny Nucci. Villard boasted
on a company website that as a manager he had "guided the careers of
dozens of successful film and television actors."