LOS ANGELES—A television interview of adult starlet Hadley Viscara was scrutinized by the attorney for LA Direct Models owner Derek Hay during the sixth day of an administrative hearing at the California Labor Commissioner’s Office Monday, in which Hay faces sexual assault and other charges brought by five of his former clients.
Hay has denied all the allegations. Viscara, Sofi Ryan, Andi Rye, Charlotte Cross and Shay Evans are the former LA Direct clients who have filed complaints with the state, claiming the agency and Hay repeatedly took advantage of them.
The hearing, which resumed Monday after a four-week hiatus, was presided over by Special Hearing Officer Patricia Salazar at the downtown Los Angeles office of the Department of Industrial Relations Division of Labor Standards Enforcement for the State of California.
Hay’s attorney, Richard W. Freeman Jr., assailed Viscara’s credibility by presenting a televised interview of the performer by KNBC journalist Dan Przygoda where she revealed that she was wondering whether she should submit to Hay’s advances when he allegedly began to sexually assault her at his Las Vegas home on Aug. 27, 2017.
“In that moment, I thought if I do this, maybe my career will be better. If I didn’t do this, what will happen to me? What will happen to my career? So I just wanted to get it over with,” she said during the interview, which aired last March.
Under cross-examination by Freeman, Viscara, who now goes by the name Hadley Mason, denied she was trying to further her career by hooking up with Hay. She asserted that she never consented to any sexual contact with Hay.
The incident took place after Viscara had joined fellow LA Direct starlet Zoe Parker at a bar at Sapphire Las Vegas where they drank several shots of tequila before agreeing to sleep off the alcohol back at Hay’s Las Vegas home, where Parker was staying. But once they arrived, Viscara said Hay told Parker “Goodnight,” and then allegedly grabbed Viscara by the arm and sexually assaulted her.
Freeman also took issue with Viscara’s assertion during the video interview that “Derek took all the money,” in reference to a number of charges that were taken out of her pay by LA Direct for a number of shoots. Freeman argued that in her first two months with LA Direct, she earned $20,450 of which $16,050 went directly to her.
But Viscara explained that her comments were in reference to her first few shoots, where her pay was deducted for several fees that left her owing the agency money for such things as airfare, rent, photos, visits to a dermatologist and other costs.
“On one hand she is portraying in the video that all of the money was taken by Derek and that she has no money, and in reality, according to the testimony taken this morning, she was acknowledging that for the months of June and July she directly received money from producers and directors for the work that she’d done that was in excess of $20,000,” Freeman said after the hearing. “On the other hand, in the video … it seems to indicate that she feels she would receive favorable treatment for having a relationship with Derek, and that may have been what she thought, but that’s not what Derek put out there.”
Freeman added that Hay would testify in his defense later this week.
The hearing is scheduled to resume today.
