LOS ANGLES—Adult icon Ron Jeremy filed a motion February 2 in Los Angeles requesting separate trials for each of the 21 accusers in the case brought against him in 2020 charging him with 34 counts of sexual assault, Rolling Stone reports.
In a hearing Monday, at which Judge George Lomeli said he was ready to rule on the severance motion, the prosecuting team of Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson and Deputy District Attory Marlene Martinez asked for more time to address it, which Lomeli granted, postponing his ruling until a follow-up hearing scheduled for March 3.
Stuart Goldfarb and Kate Hardie, the defense attorneys for the 68-year-old Jeremy—whose legal name is Ron Jeremy Hyatt—argued in the motion that separate trials were necessary in order to properly address the facts of each individual case. "Allowing Mr. Hyatt's jury to hear about dozens of allegations of alleged misconduct will prevent his jurors from judging him fairly on each charged count and from scrupulously applying the burden of proof," they wrote, adding that the number of accusers involved and the fact that the alleged incidents "took place over the course of nearly 40 years will necessarily mean that his defense to every charge will not be the same."
Furthermore, because two of the accusers were underage at the time of their alleged assaults, the defense team asserted, "Hearing that Mr. Hyatt had allegedly assaulted minor victims would make it hard for the jurors in this case to judge him fairly on the allegations that did not involve minors." In addition, addressing the accusations by two complainants that Jeremy drugged them prior to assaulting them, his attorneys wrote: "The implication that Mr. Hyatt drugged or poisoned [the Jane Does] is prejudicial and highly likely to inflame Mr. Hyatt's jurors. Consequently, those allegations should be severed from the remaining counts."
Read Rolling Stone's full report on Jeremy's new motion here.
