IF we make the assumption that Brent's claim is true and that he was, in fact, underage when the videos were made, there are two issues.

If he provided fake ID to Cobra, than undeniably, Brent committed an act of fraud and forgery, and there's no defense I can think of to that.

However, I think there's also an issue of due diligence on the part of the producer. If, as is alleged, Cobra made the decision to work with Brent on the basis of an emailed jpg of a drivers license, and did not ask to examine the physical drivers license, then Cobra is not only in violation of 2257 (which requires the producer to physically examine the identification documents) but in my opinion incredibly irresponsible.

We work with a lot of models who have recently turned 18, and slightly older models who look as though they very recently turned 18. ANY producer who works with 18 year olds could have a conniving kid present a fake ID, and if the fake were good enough, the producer could probably be duped. But I think that any producer working with younger models needs to take the responsibility to perform extra due diligence to satisfy him or herself that they're being presented with genuine ID and there's no reason for suspicion. If there's any reason to suspect otherwise, the only safe choice is to decline to work with the model. It's as simple as that. It isn't worth risking jail time (not to mention the potential revenue loss) over ANY model.

In Cobra's case, if what Brent alleges is correct, there were several opportunities, at different shoots, where Cobra asked for physical identification, and Brent did not provide physical identification to Cobra for examination. If I were Cobra, and my model were not able to provide the identification when I asked for it, everything would come to a grinding halt right then and there.

I agree that there are a lot of horny 16 or 17 year olds who know how to manipulate people (think Justin Berry, the kid written up in NY Times.) But producers of adult content, particularly adult content with 18 year old models, ought to recognize that this can happen, and take every reasonable precaution to ensure that they are being given authentic documents which they should physically examine and, preferably, verify by whatever other means possible.