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www.mysantonio.com – A San Antonio man accused of conning several youths into believing they were going to be on TV was arrested Tuesday and charged with distribution of child pornography.
Gemase Lee Simmons, 35, had been featured in news segments on Dateline NBC and MSNBC, which aired accusations he exploited several people, sexually and mentally, with promises of a reality television show about modeling that turned out to be fake.
FBI agents arrested him at his Northwest Side apartment. The child porn distribution charge, punishable by up to 30 years in prison and a lifetime of federal supervision, is unrelated to the allegations in the Dateline segments.
But the feds claim Simmons, who described himself on Twitter as a genius and fashion supermodel, used similar methods: those of a “con man.”
Because he is on probation for auto theft from a 2008 Bexar County conviction, U.S. Magistrate Judge Pamela Mathy ordered him held pending a bail hearing Feb. 14.
A criminal complaint affidavit said Simmons exploited an underage female, whom the FBI called “CV1” to protect her identity, after offering her an opportunity to be a model and spokeswoman for a purported news network called G2News.
The affidavit said Simmons used the text features of separate mobile phone accounts to pose as different people in an effort to coerce, pressure and extort the girl into taking nude pictures of herself and transmitting them to Simmons’ iPhone.
Simmons told investigators that he knew the girl was a minor and that he had transmitted the images to a female associate’s iPhone.
On Monday, “the female associate advised that Simmons has utilized the same modus operandi used on CV1 to obtain nude and sexually explicit images and videos of other minor females in San Antonio,” the affidavit said.
One of Simmons’ lawyers, Robert Gebbia, said they would need to obtain more information from the feds before commenting.
In 2008, Dateline reported that Simmons had been engaged in sexually improper behavior with some of the people who sought to be on a reality show they read about on Simmons’ Myspace page, and that he left a trail of cons and unpaid bills throughout Texas.
A film crew abandoned the project after not getting paid, according to Dateline, yet Simmons kept showing up at the “boot camp” at John Newcombe Tennis Ranch in New Braunfels with the aspiring models. The ranch has been trying to recover more than $4,000 from Simmons, Dateline said.
Simmons responded to the Dateline reports by saying that he intended to produce a reality show but failed to attract sponsors, according to a follow-up Dateline story. On his website, Simmons claims to have studied theology, but later quit his pursuit of becoming a minister. He claims to be living as a fashion model, a supermodel, an R&B artist and political consultant.
He also holds himself out to be an author of forthcoming books, including, “James: Confessions of a Con Man” and “Model Citizen.”