Did adult film newcomer Niki Lae work a scene with actor Santino Lee last Friday knowing she had tested HIV positive? According to a key adult industry health care official, the answer is yes - and they may have lied about working together despite knowing the test result.
And there is now a report that Lee had also worked with another performer, known as Caramel, the same Friday - with Caramel reportedly going voluntarily to the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Association to be tested.
Lee says Lae's test proved "inconclusive," according to AVN's Gene Ross, and says he's being scapegoated. But AIM director Sharon Mitchell insists Lee and Lae worked together despite her test being positive. And she denies Lee's suggestion that AIM skips a test method in order to bring in fast test results.
Mitchell says Lee brought Lae to AIM last Friday afternoon to pick up confirmatory test results. "They came in at 3 p.m.," Mitchell tells Ross. "I asked them if they had worked at all. They said no. I said are you sure, because we need to know. They said no, no, no."
But on Monday night, Mitchell tells Ross, a producer for All Good Video came to her "in tears" saying one of his directors had screwed up and that Lee and Lae had worked "the day of her confirmation.
"(Santino) knew she was positive," Mitchell continues, "and that she was taking confirmatory tests. And they went on a set and worked anyway."
According to Mitchell, Lae went to AIM last Thursday to pick up her first test results, which showed positive, at which point Mitchell re-drew Lae's blood, which showed positive again. Thus came a need to confirm, she tells Ross. "I redrew another DNA, an ELIZA, and a Western Blot," she says. "I sent out to all different labs. They came back (Friday) all positives. Friday morning they went ahead and worked."
Mitchell says that an oral sex scene such as Lee and Lae worked isn't a high-risk scene, "(but) they lied to me about working. As a counselor, now I have to assume maybe they lied to me about other things, and I have to assume there were other behaviors that went on between them."
She tells Ross Lee was escorting Lae about, including transporting her various places. "I assumed he was her support," Mitchell says. "When I disclosed her positivity, I included him because she needed some support. But this is a bonehead move on their part. The industry needs to know. He's at risk."
Lee says he tested Monday and should have his results back later this week, while reiterating his claim that Lae's test was inconclusive, not positive. He tells Ross he picked Lae up late last week at Los Angeles International Airport and went to AIM right away "because she was supposed to pick up her test that Sharon did with her in (Las) Vegas (during the Consumer Electronics Show, which Mitchell and other AIM associates attended).
"We get there (AIM's offices) and Sharon's looking for the test," he continues. "The next thing you know, we found out the test wasn't run until the 12th…They didn't do anything with it for a whole week. They said it didn't count because it was indeterminate, that they waited too long, seven days, to test the blood."
Lee says he was told Lae wold have to retest. "Why didn't they page Niki and tell her what was going on?" he says to Ross, adding that Lae had had a test previously in Florida, "but I told her that you're going to have a hard time getting people to accept it here because it's not one of the tests from Los Angeles.
"She said, okay," Lee continues. "That's when she had Sharon…do the test in Vegas. On Thursday, I was told the test was inconclusive, that Sharon hadn't tested the blood until seven days after. I said, she's supposed to do a scene Friday at 2:30 with Ed Powers."
Lee says he was scheduled for an oral sex scene Friday morning with another performer at All Good. "But I had to pick Niki up because I was her transportation to Ed Powers," he tells Ross. "We go there. I was ready to do my scene with another girl but they wanted to switch it and put that girl with somebody else. Then they saw me with Niki. I had called them earlier and told them about Niki that she was coming into town and they said they probably could use her for Friday for (an oral scene). Now, I was under the impression that she would have her test Thursday. They knew of her coming in, and when I came to the set with her, (they) said (they were) going to put me with Niki. Niki looked at me and said 'I thought I wasn't going to do anything'. I said to her, 'you weren't scheduled because you didn't have your test'."
Lee says he told the staff Lae's test results weren't in her hands yet and they had "to pick it up after 12," whereupon he was told it was "just" an oral sex scene and as long as they got a copy in that day, "that would be cool". Lee says the results finally arrived at 5:30 that afternoon, with Mitchell calling him in to help her "just in case she was going to go crazy."
He admitted to Ross that he said nothing to Mitchell about the oral sex scene. "I knew sooner or later that it was going to come out, anyway," he says. "Sharon asked if she had done anything here. (Niki) said no. I just let her go ahead and say that. After that, she called her husband and told him what happened. We made arrangements for her to get a flight out…Saturday morning."
Lee says AIM may be skipping the DNA method instead of going by RNA and DNA testing for HIV. "AIM is a good thing that's happening. It's great for the industry. But…(n)ot trying to down AIM, but I'm not going to be a scapegoat for anybody," he tells Ross.
Not so fast, rejoins Mitchell, who tells Ross the stories aren't exactly jibing. She says she retraced her own steps to be sure of who had what information at any point, and there were no paperwork inconsistencies.
She says she told Lee and Lae the test "is detected for HIV by PCR-DNA." She adds that that test and six other samples she drew during the CES convention, Airborne Express "didn't pick (them) up on time, so (they) sat for about four or five days. That's not pushing it. But if there was a problem in the laboratory, it would have come back indeterminate. (That) would say, OK, maybe the EDTA, which is like the preservative didn't go well and none of the inhibitors scanned at all. OK, that would tell me there's a problem at quality control, so I need to redraw. But that wasn't the case. This came back detected."
And Mitchell says she told the two performers that false positives do come back - on "rare occasions," as she put it to Ross.
" 'But to be on the safe side we must redraw'," she says she told the two. "But the test did say 'detected.' I even gave her a copy. This is what Santino tells me. He said, she didn't say that. She said it was indeterminate. I'm trying to think, what the (expletive)'s going on here? All we know is what we have on paper. Here's the bottom line. Regardless, if the test didn't come back yet, why would you work with someone?"
