LOS ANGELES: Adult film actor Ron Jeremy took advantage of the fame of his celebrity to meet and often isolate women he raped and sexually assaulted, using the same tactic for years, according to the grand jury testimony of 21 women who was starved on Saturday.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if we got a picture and an autograph of him?” one woman, identified only as Jane Doe 8, said she remembered telling her friend when they saw Jeremy in 2013 at a West Hollywood bar and grill. He sexually assaulted her minutes later, the woman testified, one of whom said her attacks reached the same small bathroom.
“I was like, wow, you know, it’s Ron Jeremy, I mean, I was a little impressed. I’m like, I don’t mean “celebrity,” but you know, it was, ”said another woman, Jane Doe 7, when Jeremy came to the door of the Hollywood hotel room with which she shared with friends, where the porn actor would rape her shortly after, according to her testimony.
Jeremy, 68, whose legal name is Ronald Jeremy Hyatt, pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of sexual assault, including 12 counts of rape, when a Los Angeles County grand jury returned an indictment against him on August 25th. since his arrest in June 2020. His lawyer, Stuart Goldfarb, has said he is “innocent of all charges” and will prove it. The email Goldfarb requested on Saturday was not returned immediately.
Nicknamed “The Hedgehog”, Jeremy has been one of the most well-known and prolific performers in the porn industry for decades and became a pop cultural novelty recognized through reality shows, public appearances and music videos. For a long time it has been a magnet for those looking for autographs and selfies, so it was first known to most women and girls aged 15-51 who are accused of assault.
Some did not even recognize him, but they reached his orbit because of the air of fame that surrounded him. A 33-year-old woman, whom Jeremy is accused of sexually assaulting when he was 15 in 2004, said she approached him at a radish he was organizing in Santa Clarita, California.
“I didn’t know who he was, but everyone told me he was famous, so I was thrilled to meet a celebrity,” said the woman, now 33, known as Jane Doe.
After meeting her, he invited her behind the scenes, where he asked her if she wanted to see “something cool,” then lifted her into the air, put her hand under her skirt, and annoyed her, he said. .
Many women described Jeremy using the same methods in the same places.
He was a popular regular at the Rainbow Bar and Grill on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, where he was allowed to use the employees ’bathroom.
He would lure the women there by offering them the kitchen where the restaurant made their famous pizzas or telling them he knew a bathroom they could use when the public restrooms were closed after the last call.
He followed them to the small space, closed the door behind them, used their considerable size to prevent them from leaving, then raped them or engaged in other sexual assaults, several women testified.
Jane Doe 8 said before the assault she told Jeremy they were staying at the Loew’s Hollywood Hotel, but did not tell her the room number.
The next day he appeared at the door.
“I have connections all over this city,” he reminded her when asked how he found them. She had not informed her friend, Jane Doe 7, of the assault, and failed in her attempts to get her out of the room, where Jeremy would rape her, according to her testimony.
Several women said Jeremy asked them to write a note about their experience on a portrait paper napkin in what prosecutors called an attempt to obtain evidence of consent after the fact. Women, under pressure and seeking to flee, often complied.
Jeremy also gave some victims cash after the attacks, so prosecutors said they were for similar reasons.
“Nothing has thrown me money,” said a woman who received a $ 100 bill from Jeremy after saying she was raped by the Rainbow Bar and Grill in 2019.
The boyfriend and the woman’s brother had warned him to walk away from Jeremy in the early evening when he asked who he was, but he still took a picture with him when he saw several others doing so.
He stated that he got in the car with them keeping the cash and said, “This came from this guy who told me to get away. He raped me in the bathroom.”
The woman went to police about an hour later, becoming one of the few people to report her assaults immediately. Some said Jeremy’s status as a porn artist prevented them from going to the authorities for years.
“He’s a celebrity and what’s known is having sex with people on camera for money,” said Jane Doe 7, who like many of the victims showed up years later only after Jeremy was arrested last year . “I thought there was no way anyone would believe me, and I just wanted to get out of there and forget about it.”
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Associated Press writer Kathleen Foody contributed to this story from Chicago.
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Follow AP Entertainment writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton