LOS ANGELES—Adult starlet Shay Evans railed against LA Direct Models owner Derek Hay, alleging sexual abuse, coercion and other misconduct during an administrative hearing at the California Labor Commissioner’s Office on Wednesday in the case filed by five adult performers who claim the agency took advantage of them.
The hearing, held at the downtown Los Angeles office of the Department of Industrial Relations Division of Labor Standards Enforcement for the State of California, was presided over by Special Hearing Officer Patricia Salazar. The petitioners are first to present their case, followed by the defense later this week.
During her emotional testimony during the third day of hearings on the case, Evans broke down in tears as she told of an incident where she along with Hay and other performers were in New York as part of the agency’s talent contingent attending Exxxotica New Jersey. Evans alleged she felt compelled to have sex with Hay after he told her he would make her a star.
But just after that incident, when she rejected his advances during a trip to Hawaii with several other LA Direct models and flew back home, her career took a sudden dive.
“My work drastically dropped after I came back home,” she told Salazar. “I wasn’t getting any bookings. It was the worst time of my life.”
Adult starlet Andi Rye testified that she never felt Hay had her best interests at heart and put his own interests ahead of hers.
“My first shoot was a boy/girl anal shoot with Greg Lansky. I didn’t know that I was doing anal until the day before,” she recalled. “I found out later that it wasn’t a good idea to do anal that early in your career. It’s best to build anticipation with your fans and when you finally do it, you make more money that way.”
Rye testified that her eighth shoot ever was a double penetration shot by veteran filmmaker Pierre Woodman, who is reportedly good friends with Hay, and is known for his extreme gonzo scenes. “I was really apprehensive about doing a d.p.—I didn’t think I was ready for that,” she said. “After the d.p., everyone but Pierre Woodman left the room; then he grabbed me by the hair and started to drag me on the floor to the bathroom and bent me over the toilet and tried to pee into my mouth and called me a piss whore.”
Although the unplanned incident was meant as behind-the-scenes footage, it was traumatizing to Rye, who did not report it to Hay since she feared being dropped from the agency because of the close relationship between the two men.
But when she learned Hay was charging fees to studios that were higher than her rate, she realized she needed to make a change, she told the judge.
“I didn’t feel Derek cared about the girls or their well-being … I didn’t see any remorse or emotion for the girls who died,” she said in reference to LA Direct Models clients Olivia Lua and Olivia Nova, who died two weeks apart in January 2018.
But Hay’s attorney, Richard W. Freeman Jr., showed the judge news clips that revealed that LA Direct had issued a statement of condolence for the two passings, which were printed on AVN.com and elsewhere at the time.
After the hearing, Freeman noted that the defense has yet to present its case and urged those following the matter to withhold judgment until both sides are heard.
“Somebody gets to go first—that’s the petitioners. And somebody goes second—that’s us—and we have not really begun to present much of our evidence,” he said. “Yet although, I think you can see from some of our evidence we did introduce today there are some pretty strong contradictions for some of the things that have been claimed by the petitioners in regards to Direct Models and Derek Hay.”
Editor's note, 9/26/19: Andi Rye contacted AVN to note that she now goes by the professional name Zoe Sparx and is represented by Nexxxt Level Talent Agency.
[UPDATE 1:07 p.m.]: AVN has corrected several details within Rye's testimony that were inaccurately reported. We regret the errors.
