LOS ANGELES — After a weeks-long recess, the Labor Board hearings concerning a petition against talent agent Derek Hay and his business, LA Direct, on behalf of five of his former clients resumed this morning in downtown Los Angeles.
The first set of hearings took place September 23-27 with the depositions and cross-examinations of all five performers, previously known only as Jane Does 1-5, but now identified, by their stage names only, as Charlotte Cross (JD1), Sofi Ryan (JD2), Andi Rye (JD3), Hadley Viscara (JD4) and Shay Evans (JD5).
The petitioners are represented by industry attorney Allan Gelbard. Hay and LA Direct are represented by Richard W. Freeman.
On Friday, September 27, the first set of hearings of what the industry popularly knows as “the Derek Hay/Jane Does hearings” had closed at the beginning of Freeman’s cross-examination of Gelbard’s last witness, Hadley Viscara.
Gelbard had conducted a detailed interrogation of Viscara concerning her tenure as an LA Direct client, from her first days in the adult industry in March/April 2017 until her acrimonious break with Hay a year later.
For XBIZ’s detailed account of the first five dates of hearings, click here.
During Gelbard’s interrogation, Viscara had described two instances of sexual contact between herself and Hay in late July 2017, which Gelbard characterized as “rape.”
The rest of Viscara’s grievances against Hay concerned LA Direct’s business practices, namely fees that allegedly run counter to California's talent agency licensing laws, and a particularly controlling system based on charging performers to stay in Hay’s properties in Las Vegas and Los Angeles that made Viscara feel, in her words, like Hay’s “slave.”
Today it was Freeman’s show, as he spent a majority of the six-hour-long hearing grilling Viscara on her late-September testimony.
Freeman essentially tried to prove that Viscara made quite a bit of money while being booked by Hay, especially in her first four months as a “new girl” in the industry, and that she should have been able to keep up with her obligations — towards LA Direct in terms of percentages and fees owed, and towards Hay and his employees in terms of rent and cash advances.
Freeman also attempted to contrast Viscara’s testimony under oath with fragments of an interview she gave an NBC affiliate in the Spring of 2018 for an exposé piece on Hay and LA Direct.
The effectiveness of this particular tactic was derailed by repeated problems operating the Labor Commission’s audio-visual setup, and by a protracted discussion between Freeman, Gelbard and the presiding Special Hearings Officer, Patricia Salazar, over the nature of the video evidence.
For the record, at the end of this protracted argument Freeman claimed he had subpoenaed “the unpublished material” (aka, the raw footage) but had not obtained it from NBC’s producer. Gelbard retorted “did you serve them?” but Salazar shut down discussion over what concerned a crucial piece of evidence.
What became clear, following over two hours of Freeman confronting Viscara with several versions of her earning statements, parsing everything, is that the former performer apparently failed to appreciate that commissions, fees and borrowed money would logically come out of the paychecks that found their way into LA Direct’s hands.
The hearings will continue until Friday, with Freeman now calling his witnesses and Gelbard cross-examining.
XBIZ will provide day-by-day summaries.
For XBIZ’s continuing coverage of the Derek Hay Labor Commission hearings, click here.
