New York City- A strapping city firefighter facing a steroids rap was suspended yesterday for peddling a sizzling adult film – starring himself – on the Internet.
Rodney St. Cloud, 31, who is also a pro bodybuilder and exotic dancer, was notified of his suspension a day after he brought a $2.5 million lawsuit against the city for false arrest in the drug case.
St. Cloud told the Daily News he started selling “Muscles on Fire” only to raise money desperately needed for his legal defense and for child support.
“It just seems like they keep trying to chip away at me,” he said. “I have a child right now and a future to look to. I need the Web site.”
St. Cloud, who was last assigned to Engine 43 in the Bronx, was charged last year with having $350,000 worth of steroids mailed to his wife’s midtown office. He was suspended for 30 days, then placed on modified duty.
But the father of an 11-month-old son drew a new suspension yesterday for the revealing film, which is advertised with a warning that it contains scenes with “explicit frontal nudity and simulated sexual acts.”
“They get pretty raw sometimes, but I think we keep our sense of humor,” he says on his Web site (rodneystcloud.com).
“There’s a shower scene, of course, and a private studio dance, but there’s also this ‘minidrama’ scene in it with me as a firefighter rescuing a blond in trouble. You’ll just have to see it,” the Web site says.
St. Cloud denied the $39.95 tape or DVD show simulated sex.
“That part of the footage, my clothes are on! Basically my shirt was off,” he said. “The woman was feeling my arms, my back, my chest. I wasn’t touching her. That’s what they consider simulated sex? Wow!”
St. Cloud also said two other scenes that capture him performing at a strip club were still being edited.
FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon said St. Cloud’s video had brought discredit upon the department.
“That’s clearly something that the department would never approve of,” he said.
St. Cloud told The News he specifically wore no official department gear on the Web site or in the video “because that would be disrespectful.”
He also accused the department of creating a double standard that allows a beefcake calendar for fund-raising but punishes him for showing off his body as a private citizen.
St. Cloud was featured as Mr. April in the 2004 “Fire Hunks” calendar.
In 2003, the 5-foot-9, 240-pound mass of muscles with 21-inch biceps was 12th runnerup in the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding contest.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Manhattan Federal Court, alleges that St. Cloud and his wife, who are now estranged, were arrested and detained last March without probable cause on the steroid charges.
“Our position is he never ordered them, never requested them and I don’t think they can show otherwise,” said his attorney Ron Kliegerman.