HOLLYWOOD, Fla.—One year after he was fired when superiors discovered his gay porn past, a former police officer has filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination based on sexual orientation. He wants to be reinstated.
Michael Verdugo, 35, claims the Hollywood, Fla., police department used his failure to disclose participation in a single gay bondage video 13 years earlier as an excuse to dismiss an openly gay man.
According to the department, Verdugo was terminated in January 2009 because omitting potentially damaging information from his job application called into question his integrity. An arbitrator recently upheld the termination.
Verdugo said it never occurred to him that a 15-minute scene in the 1996 video Rope Rituals—in which, under the name Jeremy Wess, he appeared naked and bound but did not engage in sexual activity—would be germane to either his first cop job in 1999 nor his 2001 employment by the HPD.
The excrement hit the fan in July 2008, when the video appeared on the internet. HPD officials placed Verdugo—whom the department admits still possesses a distinguished record—on administrative leave while it investigated. At the same time, the HGTV reality show Design Star booted him from a reunion show on which he had been invited to appear based on his fourth-place finish during the 2008 season (as “Mikey V”).
“I don’t regret [making the porn video],” Verdugo, who was 22 at the time, told the Miami Herald on Tuesday. “It was a time in my life that I wanted to explore.
“It was all role-playing bondage,” he added. “I was tied. I used handcuffs later on in my career.”
Verdugo also told the Herald he is certain his sexual orientation is the reason he was fired. He pointed out that if a straight officer had been unmasked as an adult performer, other officers would have been “high-fiving him in the hallway.” But in Verdugo’s case, open homosexuality led to repeated harassment by the department, he said.
“When you’re a gay cop in a paramilitary organization like law enforcement, a lot of discrimination exists,” Verdugo attorney Alberto Milian told the Herald. “[Verdugo] was a damn good cop. This guy was an asset, and there’s no doubt his talents were very useful to the people of Hollywood.”
Although Verdugo now owns two successful businesses in South Florida—an interior design firm and a home-remodeling company—his goal is to return to law enforcement. He said he always has considered police work his true calling, and he wants to send a message to other officers who are struggling with sexual-orientation issues.
“They don’t want to come out because they see what happened to me,” he told the Herald, adding that he never tried to hide his homosexuality. “Discrimination is still huge in the police community. It’s just huge.”
