LOS ANGELES — The third day of the second set of hearings concerning the Labor Board petition filed on behalf of five former models against agent Derek Hay and LA Direct took place today in downtown Los Angeles, with Hay’s attorney calling in several witnesses.
First, Hay’s defense introduced a new witness, a woman only identified by her professional name, Adonia.
Adonia testified she has known Derek Hay for at least “14 or 15 years,” and that she met him during a video or photo session that was booked at her house. “We had a lot in common with drinking wine and eating steaks, and that’s how we became friends,” said the witness.
Asked by Hay’s attorney, Richard D. Freeman, about her familiarity with Hay, Adonia testified that she and her “life partner” had dined regularly in Los Angeles with the agent until he moved to Las Vegas around 2014.
Adonia described Hay as just a friend and denied ever giving to or receiving money from either Hay or LA Direct. Asked by Freeman if she had “any professional business or financial connection with LA Direct,” Adonia replied “none whatsoever.”
Allan Gelbard, representing the petitioners, attempted to cross-examine Adonia, but the witness invoked Fifth Amendment privileges to most of the questions.
Gelbard then attempted to strike the woman’s entire testimony from the record; the matter was still being contested by the end of the hearing, over an argument whether testimony from a witness in a civil case can be struck if they plead the fifth.
Freeman then recalled one of the petitioners, Charlotte Cross, to question her about the date of a number of productions she had been involved in and about her contractual status during those dates.
Huffs and Puffs
For several minutes, Freeman questioned Cross about a dozen pages of credits, mentioning each title and production date and engaging in conversation with Cross about each instance.
Gelbard requested Special Officer Salazar, presiding over the hearing, to ask Freeman if he could ask more general questions instead of going one-by-one, as he had done yesterday with Shay Evans, “so that we don’t waste the rest of the day.” Freeman seemed to agree, but after a few items, returned to asking Cross about each single title, unhurried by the clock.
Gelbard had mentioned yesterday his concern about the hearings moving into the new year which he alleges could be a legal strategy to draw the proceedings after a February review of Hay and LA Direct’s talent license.
Special Officer Salazar allowed Freeman to continue going over each title over Gelbard’s increasingly frustrated objections. Cross was willing to parse each title in her filmography, chatting with Freeman about which movies were shot “before I got my nose done,” and evaluating every single title, sequel and repackaging of her work.
“'Slutty Stepdaughters 3’ and ‘Daddy Please 5’ are the same scene,” Cross explained on the record.
“Do you mean ‘Daddy Please 4’?” asked Special Officer Salazar, as she pored over the transcript with a puzzled look.
“No, ‘Daddy Please 5,'” clarified Cross, pointing to cells below on the spreadsheet.
“Oh, okay — I see,” replied Salazar.
Gelbard at this point had resorted to huffs and puffs and noises of frustration. “He’s just dragging and dragging!” he said about Freeman. Salazar reprimanded Gelbard and warned him not to make any more noises.
After going over all the titles, Freeman got to a key point in the labor dispute between Cross and Hay.
Cross alleges that after July 12, 2017, “nobody from Direct Models had been in communication with me” and that Hay had not attempted to book her. Some time after that, she had her attorney send a letter to Hay terminating their exclusive contract.
Freeman grilled Cross about the date the letter was sent, and when she had started working again, both on her own and through a different agency. Cross tended to answer each question quickly and firmly, but when challenged about the key issue of specific dates, her testimony was less clear. “I don’t have an answer for you, Mr. Freeman, I’m sorry,” she answered, smiling, when asked about the specific date of the letter, alternately given as “before July 2018” and “February 2018,” and a mixing of the dates of two Vegas industry events a year apart in 2018 and 2019.
“I get confused on my dates,” Cross testified, particularly when pressed about the sequence of dates regarding her self-declared termination of the contract with Hay and work she had done following that date.
“I’m confused,” added Special Commissioner Salazar as Freeman, Cross and Gelbard provided a number of disparate dates.
Freeman did have a document showing the date of Cross’ letter to Hay, April 2018, but he did not produce this until several minutes of confusing debate had elapsed.
The Models’ Friend
Freeman then called Archie Alcantara, an occasional Hay freelance employee self-described as “a roadie providing assistance for various functions” when models traveled for expos, conventions or dancing engagements.
A combination personal assistant, nanny, bodyguard and even a confidante, Alcantara, known by the models simply as “Archie,” was not familiar with Charlotte Cross but when asked about the other four petitioners — Andi Rye, Hadley Viscara, Shay Evans and Sofi Ryan — his face lit up and he said “those are my friends!”
Freeman interrogated Alcantara over his work as a roadie for LA Direct and Hay’s other company, the Lee Network, a feature dance booking outfit.
Though Alcantara expressed discomfort about the formal setting, he quickly became animated describing his duties and self-fashioned code of conduct with pride.
“I’ve been roading for almost 17 years, and I’ve known [Hay] for about half of that,” Alcantara testified. At conventions, while the models are signing and meeting with the fans, “anything they need, I get them. If someone hassles them, I take care of that. Sometimes there are overzealous fans.”
“I’m the last line of defense,” Alcantara said, smiling at the petitioners across the table.
Freeman asked the roadie about an incident at Exxxotica Denver when Ryan allegedly became extremely upset at her boyfriend, who was demanding she return home.
“I came in from snowboarding and [Ryan] is crying, she had her back to me. The two people I was with said 'That’s all you, Arch,' and left. She was saying 'I have to get out of here, I have to get out here.' She was fighting with her boyfriend who didn’t want her to be there. 'He says he’s gonna kill my animals, my cats.'"
Gelbard raised another objection. “Can we shorten these things down so that they’re not narratives?” he asked the Special Officer, but Salazar overruled him once again.
“She’s yelling ‘Don’t kill my cats!’ on the phone,” Alcantara continued. “It’s my job to calm them down,” he added. “She’s my friend!” he repeated looking at Ryan.
He also had to get Ryan ready for a dance engagement in Denver that evening. “A lot of times, when you have these slow expos, the girls go to the bar,” he continued, as Gelbard grabbed his head in frustration. “When they get a little frazzled, it’s my job to focus them. ‘You have a job to do!’ I tell them. Before they go up, I let them have a drink to get the edge off.”
During Gelbard’s cross-examination, Alcantara clarified his friendship with the models. “I only see them at work, sometimes in social media, a little [direct message] here and there. I don’t see them outside of work.”
“You’re a protector,” Gelbard said, before asking the roadie if he’d send these girls to “a topless karaoke party,” referring to a private party Hay had booked for some of the petitioners.
“No,” Alcantara immediately answered. “You wouldn’t catch me dead there.”
“Why?” asked Gelbard.
“It’s karaoke,” Alcantara replied, making a deadpan expression of utter contempt.
The entire room laughed.
“Nothing good comes from karaoke,” Alcantara added.
The most tense moment of Alcantara’s testimony came when Gelbard asked him how he would feel if some of the girls across from him had told him Hay, his longtime employer, had sexually assaulted them.
“That’s a no-no, no matter where you go,” a vexed Alcantara replied after a few seconds of visible struggle. “You break the law like that… You’re already making me mad because I don’t like hearing stuff like that. If they said he had done that, I wouldn’t know what to do. I’d be caught at the crossroads. I don’t even wanna be in this room.”
Abrasive, Compassionate, Stern
After the lunch break, Freeman called retired adult performer Brooke Haven, who was Hay’s client for her entire career, dated him in the mid-2000s, and now serves as a feature dance coach for models who sign with Hay’s Lee Network.
Haven testified to knowing Hay since 2003 and having dated him between 2003 and 2005. She was an LA Direct model until her retirement in 2014. “I had a very good career, and he was my only agent.”
Freeman had Haven explain, in detail, how feature-dance coaching works, including her rates for informational sessions, choreography, shopping trips and choosing music.
“When you said you ‘danced,’ what did you mean?” asked Freeman.
“Exotic, nude dancing,” explained Haven.
“Can you explain the difference between house dancers and feature dancers?”
“Well, house dancing is just ‘put on your bikini, your heels, and go make your money.’ Feature dancers are entertainers. The club is paying you to entertain.”
After several minutes spent explaining the ins-and-outs of professional club dancing, Freeman moved on to detailed questioning about lap dances, floor shows and champagne rooms at several clubs, including different Sapphire venues and the Crazy Horse in San Francisco.
“It’s even in the name,” explained Haven. “It’s crazy.”
Eventually Freeman connected this line of questioning with Haven’s experience coaching Shay Evans and Sofi Ryan, with the coach testifying that Evans seemed “enthusiastic” about the opportunity. Evans had previously testified that she had only feature danced reluctantly, after Hay had pressured into it.
Before releasing Haven, Freeman had her witness to the character of the man who had been her agent, boyfriend, on-camera partner — Hay was an adult performer in the mid-2000s under the stage name Ben English — and now a source of freelance leads.
“He can be a bit in the controlling side,” Haven offered, “but not in a bad way.”
“Abrasive, compassionate, stern — some people like him, some people hate him, there’s no gray area. He looks out for your best interest. If people don’t like him it's because they’ve done something wrong. Sometimes it’s very hard for them to understand that this is a business. There are rules.”
“But he is fair,” Haven added.
Asked how it was to be both his girlfriend and his client, Haven said “it was harder to be in a relationship with him. He was harder on me.”
“He’s harder on those he cares the most about,” she concluded.
The Closet vs. The Server Room
Freeman’s next witness was Veronica Majorian, a longtime LA Direct employee who testified she left earlier this year with Hay’s accountant, Fran, to work at GLWebMedia, an adult video production company run by Greg Lansky.
Majorian said she worked at Direct Models for 16 years, since she was 23, starting in 2003. She rose through the ranks starting as a receptionist, and then becoming personal assistant, office manager and eventually, in 2013, an agent.
Like yesterday’s witness, Chris Fleming, Majorian testified that she is not personally licensed as a talent agent by the state of California. The license is issued to LA Direct, which is owned by Derek Hay.
Freeman’s preliminary interrogation in this case, preceding his questions directly related to the petitioners’ case, concerned general “industry practices” about booking talent for adult work. Majorian gave a detailed explanation of her experience both as an LA Direct agent and also now as a GLWebMedia employee on the production side.
Hay’s attorney had Majorian detail every single piece of paper given to new models, returning to yesterday’s point about whether they were given one bundled contract, or several individual documents.
Majorian described her practice as handing “the Model Profile, the 2257, the Stills Release, then giving them ‘the speech’ about scheduling, testing, days off, a priority list and 'kill fees,' and then handing them the DLSE [the document including the Exclusive Contract and the Schedule of Fees], the Best Practices and the Health Test.”
An extended explanation ensued involving her daily routine, how many models she has given this paperwork to, the color of highlighter she uses to mark models who don’t reply to her messages (pink), and other day-to-day minutiae of working at LA Direct.
After a short break, Freeman took over 20 minutes to ask questions that led to Majorian explaining that she routinely deletes photos from adult performers because she has a child; therefore, one of her WhatsApp messages had not been tampered with deliberately, as Gelbard had implied earlier.
The rest of Majorian's testimony concerned her opinions on booking fees, which Gelbard and the petitioners consider “double-dipping” (or even “triple-dipping”) and therefore against the agency licensing statutes, and her description of an area at the Los Angeles LA Direct office in Encino used for camshows.
The petitioners had described this as “a closet,” arguing that it was not reasonable for Hay to punish them for refusing to cam from there. Hay’s legal team brought some photos of the area in question, done up in a basic Ikea style, but the strategy backfired when Gelbard asked Majorian about “the closet,” and she knew immediately what he was talking about.
“It’s not a closet,” she said, “it’s a server room.” Gelbard and the petitioners chuckled at the distinction.
The photo produced by Hay’s legal team clearly showed a closet-sized windowless space and Majorian clarified that the agency’s internet routers were visible there.
With only 20 minutes left, Freeman called Sofi Ryan back to the stand. He showed Ryan a receipt from a plane ticket purchased by Hay for them from Long Beach Airport to Las Vegas and back, around the time when she claimed Hay pressured her into giving him a handjob in a desolate stretch of road between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Ryan became increasingly upset, repeating “I don’t remember that” over and over at Freeman’s recitation of dates, until she finally looked at Hay and Freeman in anger and said, “He said he would leave me to die if I didn’t give him a handjob, because I had no service!”
Shown the receipt for the plane trip, she was adamant.
“I’ve never been to the Long Beach Airport! I never went on a flight with Mr. Hay!” Ryan testified.
The hearings will resume tomorrow morning in downtown Los Angeles.
For XBIZ’s continuing coverage of the Derek Hay Labor Commission hearings, click here.
