Underage Gay Performer Worked for Cobra Video

[mgh397]

We have a saying in my country "Piensa mal y aciertarás", this loosely means something like "think they're all wrongdoing and you'll be right", this means you have to look at the details and the big picture at the same time; follow me on this: an underage guy goes on willingly to a porn video company to shoot movies, over the pasr 1-2 years he produces 4 IDs (there's a difference if they were 4 of the same type with different data or 4 different IDs with the same data, I mean, if someone shows you a passport, a driver's licence, a SS card, and a birth certificate with the same data you just have to believe in it), so, after a while, this guy (now an adult) decides to go on independent and a scandal brokes up, which makes him more famous than before and, Oh! surprise!, it coincides with the launching of his personal website... For me, he's using everybody; he used to cobra guys to get a name in the business (and if they did knew he was a minor they let him use them because of the money they were making) and, in my opinion, I think he's using you too Chad.

Just my 5 cents

[chadknowslaw]

I would agree with you if that was all there was to the story.

Forging ID's is bad. Really bad. A producer can be a victim when an underage model provides legitimate looking IDs in order to make money in porn.

However, a producer is absolutely stupid to accept a scanned ID via email without ever examining an actual ID. How many bars will let you in their doors to drink if you fax them an ID? No producer in his right mind would ever accept an ID via email--ever.

Next, a producer that is told by the model that he was underage yet continues to market the product is knowingly and willingly selling child pornography. As bad as I think forging ID's to get into porn is, knowingly and willingly selling child pornography is worse. It is kiddie porn period, no excuses and it doesn't matter how popular it is or how much money it is making, a producer that knows a model is underage needs to get the kiddie porn off the market. It is the knowing and willing that turns a producer/victim into a child pornographer.

Next, a producer that knows a model was underage should not threaten or intimidate that model to keep the model quiet while still selling kiddie porn. That is just plain sick. A producer that not only knowingly and willingly sells child pornography but threatens the people that know the truth in order to keep them quiet and continue selling kiddie porn is committing an evil that should not be forgiven.

Finally, when the facts become public that a producer's material is kiddie porn, that producer should contact their distributor to get the content off the market and not leave the distributor on the hook to clean up the mess.

If all that was involved in this matter was a kid that faked an ID to earn some money I would have never touched it. However, there is a lot more involved. I really look forward to exposing the truth in the coming months, and I think the producer is going to give me just that chance--if they really file an actual lawsuit to try force the model to complete his contract, discovery rules mean I will get to depose the producer under oath. I just hope enough people are listening.

[mgh397]

I agree with you, there's way more on this that what meets the eye... I don't know, maybe it's just that the kid just doesn't give me good vibes... To launch a site in the middle of all this, requesting for money even though you're working "probonner" (as he says in the site), to request for models... I just don't like it, I think he should (as he's suppossed tobe the victim) have a low profile, at least, for as long as this is solved... Just don't know...

[chadknowslaw]

Very rarely will 2 people react exactly the same under identical circumstances--our age, experiences, and other factors guide our responses to situations. While you may disagree with Brent for posting a website, we all have the right to make our own choices, and sometimes, the right to make our own mistakes. I am not Brent's business advisor--my job is to negotiate him through disclosure of the work he did underage and to protect him from illegal retaliation.

What REALLY scares me about all that has happened is that what Brent has gone through would discourage anyone else who has ever done underage work from coming forward. I am not sure how to balance this dilema out--we do not want underage models to think there are no repercussions to forging ID's but I would not want to discourage a model from coming forward with the truth. I don't believe there is any easy solution to that. Expecting potential models to never try to forge ID's is like expecting to have a bar on a college campus and thinking no student would ever try to sneak in underage. It must be expected that the occassional underage model will try get in; it may be due to improper recruitment, financial difficulties, or any number of reasons but you must expect underage models to try.


I am not old enough to remember the Traci Lords fiasco but after it was revealed that she performed in something like 147 hardcore videos while under age, she went on to make hundreds more. The industry was shocked, the US Congress experienced a knee-jerk reaction that lead to what is now known as 2257, but horny men everywhere continued to buy her videos. Remember that the client of porn has a credit card in one hand and his cock in the other--the adult industry just provides material that he can jerk off to. If a good looking model once produced something underage, as long as the material is legal history doesn't seem to matter to the porn customer. While some studios wouldn't touch Traci Lords, others would. Some distributors wouldn't carry her legal product, but others would. Men don't think about morals with a raging hard on dripping in their shorts.



I do believe in the need for good legal guidance. The Bar Association encourages all member attorneys to provide legal services to those that cannot pay at little or no cost. I am representing Brent the best way I know how, and for no compensation. I am not getting paid by the client, nor by outside sources, nor am I receiving payment in kind such as videos or sex, and I am even taking a little bit of heat for representing him. However, at the end of the day, knowing what I know about this case, I feel I am doing the right thing.

[mgh397]

Men don't think about morals with a raging hard on dripping in their shorts.

Quoting a title many times used in movies: "A hard dick haves no conscience"...

From the legal point of view (more or less), do you think things like this may be avoided if the people in the industry got together in some kind of organization? Maybe one covering everybody in the industry or maybe different ones by activity? (i.e. one for producers, one for studios, one for actors, etc...) I question this because, as any other industry that organizas itself into unions or the like, there's always a certain standard that must be meet by all members, legal advice, controls, and things like that, so, in this particular case, it would have been really hard for a minor to get into the business as either the actors' association or the producers' one (or any other) would have discovered it pretty quikly or would had made checks on him before he was able to shoot anything... Just a thought.

[chadknowslaw]

If our government was really serious about keeping underage models out of porn, they would provide a age verification service. It takes less than 2 minutes to check a person's entire recorded criminal history--it would be very simple to fax in Matthew Model's photo ID to an instant verification service and have the legitimacy of the ID verified. That would prevent the majority of falsification of ID's and would be much more effective than the impossible 2257 rules.
Nothing is 100% effective, however. Even such a government operated verification would not prevent Samuel Shifty from taking his older brother's birth certificate and SS card into the DMV and getting a new driver's license with Sam's pic on it and Brother Brad's information. That is an ID that will fool even an experienced law enforcement officer--so there is no 100% surefire way to prevent underage performing.
There are, however, ways to reduce the risk and the responsibility does fall on the producer. The responsible producer is best equiped to keep the underage model out. Here are a few suggestions:

First, you can obtain a manual that shows all state's driver's licenses as well as other country's ID's. I believe the cost is $25 so it that is nominal compared to the cost of inadvertently making kiddie porn. Compare the ID given to you with what the actual ID should be. There are subtle differences, and that book will help.
Closely examine the ID. Most state's driver's licenses have holograms and images that appear under black light. The manual I mentioned about tells you how to spot the real thing.
Ask for 2 forms of ID. One fake is easy, rarely will someone underage have 2.
If something smells funny, go with the model to the DMV and verify. Yes it is extra work and yes you might just lose a model over it. However, if you are working with barely legal models, then you really need to pratice due diligence.
The smell test is simply this' "If it smells funny, it probably is" A model that provides 3 driver's licenses from 3 separate states but is only 18--that smells funny to me. How many 18 year olds have lived in 3 separate states in the past 2 months? And taken the time to get a driver's license in each one of them? And the issue dates dont seem to add up correctly?
Don't do profoundly stupid things like have the model scan his ID and email it to you. Co*** did that. Apparently the people at C**** never have heard of Photoshop. Accepting a scanned ID instead of examining the actual ID violates 2257 as well.

Finally, if a model tells you that he was underage, first you pull the content, THEN you verify his statement. Wait, first you call a good lawyer and then with his help pull the content, and THEN verify the model's assertions.

[gaybucks_chip]

... do you think things like this may be avoided if the people in the industry got together in some kind of organization? Maybe one covering everybody in the industry or maybe different ones by activity? (i.e. one for producers, one for studios, one for actors, etc...) .

I was discussing this with a couple of individuals regarding the barebacking issue (and no, I don't want to start that whole thread again...). The problem is... the very thing that brings people into the adult industry is the thing that keeps the industry from banding together on almost anything. People who enter the adult industry are renegades... people who don't mind doing something against what society as a whole thinks, what the government might think, etc... and so getting those sort of individualistic thinkers to go along with any sort of trade association... well, i doubt we'll see it. The only one that's been remotely successful is ASACP... and of course, only because that issue is SO universally acknowledged by everyone as something that's over the line.

I agree with Chad... I'd love to see adult producers have access to a centralized database to verify age, but I don't see it happening... and even if it does, that poses serious privacy concerns and I'm not really excited about those issues either.

The middle ground he proposes seems like a wise one to me. It's very similar to the one we've been using, and we've just upgraded our process to make it even less likely that a model can sneak through it as Brent did.

Of course, a cunning model might still find a way to deceive a studio in spite of its best efforts... and in those cases, the studio just takes its lumps and pulls the product immediately.

If the studio in question had done that, nobody would still be talking about it. It's the actions that happened *after* the information came to light that is creating the bigger controversy.