Attorney Ron Miller wanted to weigh in on recent developments where Cal-OSHA and the LA County Dept. of Health contacted several porn talent agencies regarding a female performer who contracted an STD.
“I read Mike Fattorosi’s comments www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=32371,” says Miller who also performers under the name Don Hollywood.
“But it amazes me- doesn’t anyone remember when these rules came out? This is nothing new. [Peter] Kerndt [director of the STD program for LA County] did this at least five or six years ago. And they set down a pattern of rules. www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=4024
[In response to that hearing in question, Assemblyman Paul Koretz at the time sent a letter to 185 adult film production companies urging them to adopt condoms or face legislative action. Miller, himself, was interviewed by news media regarding the affects he thought that would have on the industry.]
“Everybody had to work with condoms,” recalls Miller.
“Everybody had to work with eye protection, dental dams, rubber gloves and everyone laughed. They said we can’t make a movie this way. The hell with the rules. As I recall TT Boy got cited on two separate occasions. But to see everybody up in arms about what are we going to do next, or who to blame and how we’re going to stop all this- like this is something new?”
“Above and beyond anything else, the best way to get any form of law enforcement to go away and leave you alone is not do their job for them,” advises Miller who suggests that anyone who’s been contacted by Cal-OSHA or LA County Health should comment, ‘we don’t have anything to say to you. I don’t want to talk about it.’
“Whether they’re the police or the self-proclaimed sex police, there isn’t a damn thing they can do about it,” states Miller. “Because talent has done nothing wrong.”
“I’ve read and heard from a couple of clients of mine who’ve been contacted. They said to me what should we do? I said don’t talk to them. Just don’t say a word.”
“It always concerns me when any form of law enforcement or any form of government attempts to start compiling some form of data base- as in talking to somebody who has contracted an STD, whereby they’re asking who they’ve worked with. To me it seems real likely that this is going to be a repeat of what went on with TT Boy.”
“Business is bad enough out there and things are tight,” Miller continued.
“Why should talent put their livelihoods at risk by feeding information which would most probably get a production company, or an independent producer cited? It’s always been my experience that the good folks of law enforcement are never, ever your friends. They’re not there to help talent. They’re not there to benefit the industry. They’re the self-appointed sex police.”
“It doesn’t seem that anyone ever learns from the past,” Miller feels.
“Although I realize there are a lot of new girls in the business.”
“From the last time they [the dept. of health] tried to make an end run like this, it’s taken them something like five years to figure out that they better make another run at it. And everyone’s running around like Chicken Little going the sky’s going to fall. I honestly believe that the only way a few pieces of the sky can fall is by having talent talking to these people. If they could have made these rules work, the logical side of me, the criminal lawyer side says if they could have put a case on someone, it doesn’t take five or six years, particularly when they did cite TT Boy.”
“The fact is this didn’t cripple the industry and no one else got involved. Cal-OSHA and LA County Health didn’t run around looking to talk to talent. If you look at this situation for what it appears to be, they’re attempting to talk to talent now because they’ve established a new front to attack the industry. I can only hazard an informed opinion that that the new front includes them aligning themselves with talent hoping that talent will be their allies.”
Anita Cannibal, in the past, has urged talent to blow whistles regarding STD complaints.
“With all due respect to her and I know she’s been aspiring to be an attorney for a long time,” says Miller.
“I think that she would be doing the industry and talent a big favor by not giving advice and not going to these various meetings and speaking out. We learned a long time ago: this industry needs to be independent without any type of organization. When meetings are had, it allows comments from Anita Cannibal to become public. I wish there were enough people who could remember Johnny Black’s husband and his efforts to put a trade association together.”
[Just recently there has been talk of the talent agencies organizing a talent “guild”.]
I mention this to Miller and he says he’s astonished to hear this.
“It’s been tried before, and all that does is make it real easy for people like the folks from Cal-OSHA and County Health to walk in with all their homework being done,” Miller comments.
“It would seem to me that the agencies would have everything to lose and nothing to gain by putting themselves in the position where they’re organized. They’re outside of the loop as far as issues between the performers and the production companies. Talent goes to an agent saying can you get me work. Production goes to the agents and books the talent they want. Unless the agencies are paying for tests and negotiating who’s working with who, I can’t understand why they would want to put themselves in the line of fire when they’re clearly not there now.”
“As I understand the whole agency system, as long as the agency is licensed and bonded, its job is for talent. The production company pays the talent directly and a piece of that goes to the agent. But the agent has no connection with production. They only say I got you a job and here’s your call time. Here’s the location.
“Then the agent is out of the picture. If the agent gets called when the talent is on the set saying I don’t want to do this scene for whatever reason, then the agent handles it accordingly. I would assume, since I’ve never been repped by an agent.”
Miller suggests if talent has been contacted by County Health and has no idea what to do, he’d consult with them- for free- to advise what their options are as far as talking to anyone in law enforcement. Then, again, he’s already stated his opinion on that.