LOS ANGELES—Adult talent agent Derek Hay, who was charged Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court with two counts of pandering by procuring, will imminently and willingly answer to the warrant for his arrest and extradition issued with the indictment, his attorney Richard W. Freeman told AVN. Hay is based in Las Vegas.
"Derek has made arrangements to return to Los Angeles to surrender to confront the charges," Freeman said, "and we have every reason to believe that in confronting the charges, we will show that they cannot be proven and are not true."
The two charges against Hay—which represent Counts Six and Eight of the 12-count indictment—allege that he "did unlawfully procure" Hadley Viscara and Sofi Ryan, respectively, "for the purpose of prostitution."
Viscara and Ryan are two of the five former clients of Hay's agency, LA Direct Models, who have a pending case against him before the Labor Standards Division of the California Department of Industrial Relations, in which Freeman is also serving as his legal counsel. Whether or not these new charges were precipitated by testimony from Viscara and Ryan during that case's hearings, which concluded in late November, remains unclear, according to Freeman.
"Sometimes you have an understanding or belief or thought that criminal investigations might be being pursued," Freeman offered, "but in this instance, I wasn't aware of any indicators about Derek Hay. But since the new charges relate to things that have been out there and have been being said for almost 18 months, I don't know what the timing was."
That is to say, he explained, "I am not sure of the timing of whether the young women involved went first to their attorney to pursue allegations of wages and commissions and validity of contracts with the department of labor, or whether the statements were made indepently before, after, during, to investigators at the beurea of labor standards enforcement in connection with other investigations that were being done."
He added, "The attorney general's office is the criminal enforcement portion of the department of labor's attorneys, and the attorney general's office made the decision to file the charges. Why now, because the allegations date back some period of time? I don't know."
Regardless, Freeman concluded, "Derek will mount a very vigorous defense to these charges and allegations, and we are confident that we will disprove the charges."
