At the request of AVN, the owner of Adultbeat.com today removed from the site the transcript of an apparently illegally tape-recorded telephone conversation with AVN.com Managing Editor Scott Ross about the current industry HIV scare.
Ross never consented to be tape recorded by Adultbeat.com gossipmonger Luke Ford, which, according to AVN attorney Paul Cambria, is a prosecutable felony.
Adultbeat.com owner Lensman agreed with Cambria’s position, as relayed to him by AVN President Paul Fishbein and immediately took the transcript off the site.
“I called Lensman and the gentleman that he is, he took it down immediately,” Fishbein told AVN.com. “He agreed with me 100 percent that it was illegal and completely wrong. It’s important for Luke Ford to know that I have Lensman’s ear. He needs to know that when he crosses that line, we will not stand for it.”
Ford, without Ross’s consent, tape-recorded a phone conversation Ross had on Monday with producer/performer Rob Spallone and others about the HIV crisis, sparked by performer Darren James contracting the virus. Ross told AVN.com today that while speaking with Spallone at his Starworld Productions office, he wasn’t aware Ford was there.
“I quietly slip my tape recorder on,” Ford, using the by-line, Duke Floored, wrote in the removed adultbeat.com story about Spallone’s conversation with Ross.
During the conversation, Ross said, “I don’t want this conversation up on Adultbeat,” to which Spallone replied, “I’m agreeing with you that it shouldn’t be on Luke Ford [one of Ford’s previous sites].”
“And on Adultbeat?” Ross pressed. “That’s true,” Spallone said.
Nonetheless, a heavily excised transcript of the conversation was later posted on Adultbeat.com.
Ford is known throughout the industry for wildly inaccurate reporting, not adhering to basic journalistic procedures of fairness and balance, and questionable ethics, such as his non-consensual tape-recording of Ross.
