FILE PHOTO: Adult film star Ron Jeremy speaks during an interview with Reuters in New York February 7, 2007. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
June 24, 2020
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Adult film star Ron Jeremy was charged with raping three women and sexually assaulting a fourth in incidents in West Hollywood from 2014 to 2019, the Los Angeles County district attorney said on Tuesday.
Jeremy, 67, is among the biggest names in the pornography industry, having appeared in more than 2,000 adult films starting in the 1970s.
Prosecutors said Jeremy, whose real name is Ronald Jeremy Hyatt, forcibly raped a 25-year-old woman at a home in West Hollywood in May 2014, according to a statement from Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey.
They also alleged he sexually assaulted two women, aged 33 and 46, on separate occasions at a West Hollywood bar in 2017, and forcibly raped one of them.
In a fourth incident, prosecutors said Jeremy forcibly raped a 30-year-old woman at the same bar in July 2019, the statement said.
Jeremy did not enter a plea when he made his first court appearance in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, City News Service reported. He was ordered held in custody in lieu of $6.6 million bail and will be formally arraigned on Thursday.
If convicted of all the charges, Jeremy faces a possible maximum sentence of 90 years to life in state prison.
Jeremy’s manager, Dante Rusciolelli, said on Tuesday he had dropped the porn star after hearing of the charges.
“We hope that these allegations against him are not true, but if they are, we hope that he is prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Rusciolelli wrote in an Instagram posting.
When Rolling Stone reported allegations of sexual misconduct by Jeremy in 2017, he told the magazine he had “never and would never rape anyone.”
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Tom Brown and Peter Cooney)
