Prosecutors charged pornographic film star Ron Jeremy with 20 additional sex crimes on top of the eight he was already facing, bringing the number of alleged victims from four to 17.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced the latest charges on Monday. Jeremy, 67, was charged with three counts each of forcible rape and forcible penetration by a foreign object, and one count each of forcible oral copulation and sexual battery in June. Jeremy pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The district attorney’s office described the slew of new charges facing Jeremy:
The complaint against Ron Jeremy Hyatt … includes six counts of sexual battery by restraint, five counts of forcible rape, three counts of forcible oral copulation, two count of forcible penetration by a foreign object and one count each of sodomy, assault with intent to commit rape, penetration by a foreign object on an unconscious or sleeping victim and lewd conduct with a 15-year-old girl.
The new charges allege crimes that took place over a 16-year span from 2004 to 2020. The alleged victims ranged in ages from 15 up to 54.
Allegations against Jeremy hit mainstream media in 2017 when more than a dozen women spoke to Rolling Stone and made a series of accusations against him, from inappropriate touching to rape. The porn star denied the accusations then as well.
“These allegations are pure lies or buyer’s remorse,” Jeremy said in a statement. “I have never and would never rape anyone. All serious allegations have been investigated by police and dismissed by judges, as have most of the accusations of ‘groping.’ I have never been charged nor spent one day in court for any of this.”
Allegations against Jeremy and other porn stars have circulated for years, though alleged victims do not often bring their accusations to police. The alleged victims, who often also work in the porn industry, have said that their line of work automatically makes others skeptical of their claims and discourages others from coming forward.
In February, the pornography site Pornhub came under fire after films showing sex trafficking and rapes, including of minors, appeared on the site.
As reported in The Daily Wire:
In an explosive op-ed in the Washington Examiner on Sunday, Laila Mickelwait noted “several shocking cases of sex trafficking and child rape films that were hosted on Pornhub” over the past few months, including one involving a 15-year-old girl who was missing for up to a year until her mother discovered 58 videos of her being hosted on the site. The girl’s trafficker was eventually spotted in a 7-Eleven surveillance video before police arrested him. Another case involved Michael Pratt, owner of GirlsDoPorn, who coerced 22 women into performing sex acts on camera; the acts were later posted to Pornhub.
“These women sued GirlsDoPorn and won a $12.7 million lawsuit against the company,” reported Mickelwait. “According to a federal indictment, Pratt and his co-conspirators produced child pornography and trafficked a minor. Pratt reportedly fled the United States for New Zealand and is currently wanted on a federal warrant.”