You’ve seen his chiseled torso in Rope Rituals. You’ve seen his million dollar smile on HGTV’s Design Star. And you used to see him on the streets of Hollywood as a cop. But once Michael Verdugo’s porn past caught up with him in 2008 — Rope Rituals is a bondage fetish film — he was put on leave from his taxpayer-funded job. And now he’s gonna sue to get his job back. And maybe for some cash money, too.
Rituals came out in 1996, when Verdugo was 22 and going by Jeremy Wess, and three years before he became a cop. “I don’t regret it,” he says. “It was a time in my life that I wanted to explore.” Well!
And it was his stab at reality show fame, appearing on Design Star, that alerted the web fiends a former bondage performer was now making a go at interior design. HGTV uninvited the fourth place finisher from its reunion episode. And once police brass found out about it, he was put on leave, and eventually terminated — not because Verdugo is gay, insists the LAPD, but because he lied (omitted?) his porn past. Thus, the discrimination lawsuit, which Verdugo says is based on his sexuality.
Indeed, Verdugo didn’t put his Rope Rituals role — for which he was paid $700 — on his resume. But maybe he should have: His experience with handcuffs wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.
How about we take this to the next level?
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The Artist
People are just stupid. Give the man back his job.
terrwill
Unless he signed some kind of sworn statement indicating he was not a pornster prior to being a copper, he has a huge lawsuit on his hands here. The NYC Fireman Michael Bursitea (sp?) who had that 12″ hose attached to his crotch kept his job because his video was made prior to his employment despite efforts to extinguish his career………
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
@No. 2 Terrwill
Not sure why it should even matter if the porn is made while being a cop? Many police officers and firemen have second jobs in all sorts of areas and fields. Producing and acting in films, porn or other, is perfectly legal and, per the Supreme Court, meets the moral standards of the community [community standards vary, but in Hollywood, even fetish porn doesn’t raise eyebrows].
I sure hope he prevails in his lawsuit. LAPD and the City should weigh the costs, save the taxpayers the waste, and give this guy his job with back pay. Is there a new reality show here, cause, damn, he is fine to look at.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
Also, that Michael Biserta, what a fire hose he is packing!
terrwill
No. 3 · Mike in Asheville, nee “in Brooklyn”: Because I am fairly certain that they must sign some sort of “morality? clause prior to joining the force, being that the PD is actually a paramilitary force they are entitled enforce certain rules on their members, which they must agree to prior to joining.
I remember reading a lot about this when the Biserta case was in the news and one of the reasons he was allowed to keep his job was becasue he wasn’t a cop. I don’t think it is universal in every department though…………….
That being said Michael Biserta can hose me down anytime…. : P
Republican
@ Mike in Asheville,
Holy shit, we actually agree on something. I think Terrwil is right that cops usually sign something that includes some sort of morality clause, but I agree with you that it’s totally stupid. I can’t believe people still freak out over sex. I just don’t get it.
sal(the original)
well aint that smart,fire someone who WANTS to be a cop in these times,it’s like the army where de hell yuh gonna get people to sign up for such a dangerous gig?
Ted B. (Charging Rhino)
Playgirl magazine’s 1995 Man of the Year, John Holliday, is a current member of the LAPD and has been one for many years.
http://www.robbinsvilleweb.com/news/2009/10/16/former-playgirl-model-sues-township-over-police-job/
http://www.trentonian.com/articles/2009/10/16/news/doc4ad7e0c538c42307277050.txt
Sounds like a double-standard within the LAPD. And I doubt that Verdugo and Holliday are the only ones….
GoGoGod
too bad his ugly…
ggreen
He makes that same mistake most gay men are now making. His hair is cut too short and it makes him look much older than he really is and it accentuates all the worst features of his face. Close cropped hair makes him look severe.
Penn
This guy is a cop in Hollywood, FL not in CA. LAPD reference is incorrect.
anonymous
I don’t know that this has anything to do with a “morality clause”. Lying or omitting something from your job history is grounds for dismissal in many government jobs. A lot of people will omit a short job that did not work out because they don’t want the new boss checking their references there and finding out something unflattering. And working 2nd jobs often needs prior permission from your supervisors too. I don’t know how far back he was supposed to document his employment, but 10 years is often common. The guy obviously omitted the porn job, and to win his case he’s going to have to prove that he was singled out for selective enforcement and his employer’s intent was to discriminate. I think he’s odds of winning are not good.
Keith Kimmel
Wow, what a pretty boy. Yes, he should get his job back… this is one cop I’d like to be arrested by. lol
alan brickman
If he’s a good cop then give him back his job….too many hypocrites these days ….
nikko
idiots. Anybody wanting to serve in government or public jobs ought not to get involved in porn, period.
Josh
I’ve been trying to find the clip of Michael Verdugo’s porn vid. Does anyone know where I can download it? Thanks.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
@No. 6 Republican
If memory serves me, I don’t think I have ripped you over one of your posts, though, as you point out, we are most always on the other sidesof an issue. [See how I ripped 2 guys on the Obama DADT State of the Union thread; good times.]
I am one of those “Up from Conservatism” gay boys. In HS, I volunteered for the Ford campaign; lots of family ties to the GOP, many pics of parents/Reagan and GHW Bush, yada yada yada. HIV/AIDS awakened me to the many evils embraced by the wingnut faction that controls the GOP.
During my evolving political idealism, though, I also have been awakened to the insipid failures by the Democratic leadership and party. DADT has been worse than had Clinton done nothing. Before DADT, there was at least some [false] rationalization to not mix straight and gay service members for fear of undermining preparedness. Under DADT, it has made it clear that the straight military establishment just doesn’t want to have to deal with fags — legalized discrimination that is an affront to the Equal Protection Cause of the 14th Amendment (irrespective of what those hypocritical dolts on the SCOTUS opine). And thanks to spineless Clinton, who threw the LGBT community under the bus to improve his own political standing, we are stuck with DOMA until it is repealed or ruled unconstitutional.
And, if you check my other posts and those of many [now former] Obama supporters, we have been thrown under the bus by Obama too.
Just don’t expect us to join the GOP: they do everything they can to continue oppressing our rights; the Dems just don’t do anything.
B
No. 15 · nikko wrote, “idiots. Anybody wanting to serve in government or public jobs ought not to get involved in porn, period.” …. what makes you think he wanted to become a
police officer at the time when those films were made?
Should appearing in a porn production when 22 years old
mean a lifetime restriction on what jobs someone can hold?
If so, that is a really stupid economic policy – you want
people to be able to get the jobs they are most suited to
because that increases productivity.
B Damion
He should just stick to gay porn. It pays way more than his cop job. This story is for the birds…next>>>>
zack
Instead of just guessing, I took 10 minutes to look up the Hollywood PD application. It’s found here:
http://www.hollywoodpolice.org/special_units/personnel_hiring.htm
Applicants have to fill out a 25 page “Personal History Statement”. Applicants have to list jobs for the past 10 years, including part-time and volunteer work.
I’m not a lawyer, but I do know that the majority of porn actors (both male and female) are considered independent contractors. I’d guess that this distinction would be the only chance he has to win the case.
I tried to find out if the City of Hollywood includes sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policy. You’d think that sort of thing would be easy to find; but, I couldn’t find that information.
FakeName
If you click through the link embedded in “based on his sexuality” you can click a link there to read the arbitrator’s findings. The arbitrator found that Verdugo deliberately omitted the film work from his employment history because he knew that it would disqualify him from being hired by the Hollywood PD. He did the same thing on an application to the Lauderhill PD in 1998. His omission of the film work on his Hollywood application was found to be improper and “rises to the level of a dischargeable offense.”
There are some other ancillary charges, like he founded a couple of corporations without getting permission from the department which by themselves were not found to be dischargeable offenses but when viewed in light of the application omission support discharge.
Assuming that the arbitration was fair and neutral, he doesn’t have a case. He lied by omission on not one but two job applications and testified that he knew disclosing the film work would keep him from being hired in the first place. I don’t agree with his being fired but legally the city appears to be in the clear.
Republican
Mike,
Thank you for that post.
I was quite liberal in my teen years, but started to shift to the right during my years at Stanford. I am a conservative, but my understanding of that label does not include the wacky shit that many “conservatives” in this country embrace. On most issues, I agree with the Republicans, so that’s what I call myself.
Don’t worry, I don’t expect many “Obama gays” to vote for the GOP. I do know plenty of gays who vote for the elephants (and 1 in 4 gays voted for McCain), but it’s unlikely that Obama’s failures will cause much of a difference in terms of party affiliation. I think a lot of gays who voted for Obama will sit out in 2010 or will consider third party options, but I realize that few are going to the GOP unless it changes significantly.
And, truth is, while we may disagree on celebrities who are possibly pathetic closet cases or on issues unrelated to gays, I think we’re mostly in agreement on gay rights. And, based on our comments to this article, we have the same general opinion on issues involving sex.
Josh
@Republican– Did you watch the Senate and House debates on the Hate Crimes Bill on CSPAN when that was going on??
I did. Most of the Republican senators and representatives except for a few moderate/liberal ones on the coasts and Joseph Cao in the south, not only voted against it but morally equated homosexuality with pedophilia in their speeches.
The overwhelming majority of the Republican senators and representatives said such vile homophobic rants that it literally made me sick to my stomach.
Most of the Republican politicians and activists are against gay rights in all areas and many of the activists are vitriolic in their anti-gay stances.
FakeName
Zack sez: I tried to find out if the City of Hollywood includes sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policy. You’d think that sort of thing would be easy to find; but, I couldn’t find that information.
I couldn’t either. All the police application says is that it’s an “equal opportunity/equal access” employer (no idea what the scope of that is). Closest I could find was an ordinance banning housing discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin or place of birth”. Housing ordinances usually cover the same categories as employment and public accommodation statutes (usually they’re all in the same statute) so I’m thinking that Hollywood doesn’t have a specific anti-discrimination ordinance. The police chief testified in this case that Verdugo wouldn’t have been disqualified from employment for being gay and that the chief knows of other gay cops in the department, but is he going to say anything else?
RS
@nikko: Unless you’re running to be the GOP Senator from Massachusetts?
RS
There’s a difference between lying and omitting. Lots of people omit things on their resumes. I have jobs I had in high school and college that I don’t include because they were more than 20 years ago and simply aren’t relevant to my career. In this economy, some people have multiple versions of their resumes, depending on the type of job they’re going for, that emphasize certain skills and experiences or de-emphasize experience that might make them seem over-qualified.
So there’s a lengthy questionnaire that asks for every job, including part-time and volunteer work? If he only made $700, that could well have been for one scene — possibly up to three, depending. If he forgot to mention that he once picked up a few gigs as a cater-waiter, do you think they would have suspended him?
As for a morality clause … I find it hard to imagine such a thing would be legally enforceable for legal work that occurred prior to being hired in his new profession. But if this is Hollywood, Florida, who knows?
jason
If he wanted to “explore” rope bondage, why didn’the do it in private? Why allow cameras to film it? He should have known better. I suspect he may have done it for money.
In any case, I feel the police department may be discriminating against him on the basis of his sexuality. I’d be interested to know how this same department has handled indiscretions by female members. If there’s a double standard, it’s usually a good clue.
schlukitz
More pork sausages, Mom, please?
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
@No. 21 Republican
Stanfurd? That junior university? LOL
My two favorite Stanford stories:
1) Traveling from Cal to attend a lecture by Eudora Welty (the Cal Rhetoric Dept. was party to the invite) where she read, among others, my favorite of her stories, “Why I Live at the P.O.
2) The shock then awe of watching the Golden Bears snap defeat from the jaws of victory, and then, just 8 seconds later, watching the redemption of “The Play”!
And yes, we certainly do agree that one’s private sexual fancies and delights are the concern of only the parties involved.
Go Bears! Oh, and go Golden Bears too!
JoeyB
loser. next story please.
Republican
Mike,
Yeah, never heard that one before. 😛 Amazing how many Cal students (and grads) seem to think that “Junior” is the kind of university and not part of the name of the person it was named after. 😉
Seriously though, Cal sucks!!!
Seriously though, I was quite young at the time of “The Play”. I didn’t even know what Stanford was at the time. I missed the AIDS crisis due to age.
SJ
@Josh: @Josh:
You can type in Jeremy Wess in google and you’ll find a video on xtube you can download for a fee or watch the demo
Toby
@nikko:
Nikko is right. Do you know how many times I was asked in college and in my early 20s to do porn? A lot. I never did it because I was concerned about the consequences on my family and my future career plans. If you are grown up enough to perform in porn then you should be mature to handle the consequences. Obviously, he knew that it could come back to haunt him since he used an alias.
scott ny'er
@Toby: Really? Post a pic so we too can ask you to be in porn. :p
B
No. 31 · Toby wrote, “@nikko: Nikko is right. Do you know how many times I was asked in college and in my early 20s to do porn? A lot.”
That’s nice, but Nikko is not right regarding what he actually said because he made an invalid assumption about Michael Verdugo (assuming Nikko was referring to him and not commenting in general). The problem is that when Verdugo was in a porn production he might have not had any idea that he’d want “to serve in government or public jobs” several years later.
Now, you can state that being in a porn production is not a good idea because, given current social attitudes, it could impact future career choices, but someone isn’t necessarily an “idiot” for not knowing how he might change his mind some years from now.
benlayvey
@Josh: I believe its on NakedSword’s VOD site.
Lame
I think we can all agree that bondage porn plus cop = big ol’ bottom
ossurworld
This police officer did a job, for which he earned money, and the job was not illegal. If people are fired for leaving a one-day job off their professional resume, then many will lose their adult position for working at a fast-food joint for one shift when 17 years old.
Mike in Asheville
@No.29 Republican
Okay you got me on that one; its a way old and not particularly funny joke. But alas, as that it about the only silly thing there is to say about Stanford, it does say, irrespective of football fields and basketball courts, that Stanford is the Cal of the South Bay (oops, I did it again), I mean Harvard is the Stanford of the East.
The important thing here, of course, damn this bondage boy is hot!
Cheers.
Cam
Does anybody remember, wasn’t there a court case a few years ago about some female cop who was fired for appearing topless in a magazine? How did that case turn out?
JoeyB
He’s ugly. Next.
Mike in Asheville
@No. 39 JoeyB
Now that’s an intelligent contribution about this news story; NOT.
Employment discrimination; personal privacy; law enforcement; sexual privacy … and your contribution, like a few others above, is, in your opinion, he’s ugly?! And because, in your and those others’ opinions, he is ugly so his ugliness invalidates his plight?
It is one thing to muse about another’s looks relative to one’s personal tastes, I did so in my posts that this guy is, in my opinion, hot. But I certainly did not imply that that has anything to do with whether this man, and others in his situation, are not faced with a form of legalized employment discrimination, a public policy that, should it stand, may allow continued discrimination against other gays/lesbians, even those who you think are hot.
Hopefully when you find yourself in a situation where your livelihood, or simply your desire for privacy, is violated, and you attempt to get support to help protect you from that violation, you won’t hear someone say to you, “You’re ugly. Next.”
Adam
ummmm…hello he’s not a cop in Hollywood LA he’s in Hollywood Florida. Come at least report the story right.
MissLaWanda
is he black? This is so racist.
MuscleBoy
does he bareback? woof
St.LuciaBoy
who here was a mushroom head?
nick
Hey JOEYB, you’re a disgusting, rude idiot. He’s exotically handsome. You are blind. Did I mention you’re stupid, too?
JoeyB
@nick: Yeah Nick, your mama warned me about you. She said you were released early from the mental hospital with a T-shirt that read “Deuce”. I said to her, “Oh don´t worry”, I´ve had worst.
edwin
He is not just ugly, he is such a bottom, that’s way he even got fire from the gay porn industry, he couldn’t be man enough to fuck somebody, he is a small penis girl, and always trying to be famous so he provoked this situation, so don’t believe the mother fucker
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
@No.49 Edwin
Lets see:
Because he is (if your claim is correct) a bottom, that means he doesn’t deserve the same anti-employment-discrimination protections that tops do?
Because he has (if your claim is correct) a smaller than typical penis, that means he doesn’t deserve the same-anti-employment discrimination protections that guys with bigger dicks do?
Well Ed[lost], you sound like a disgruntled troll angry that the hot porno boy gets the attention you want BUT: he’s hot and you’re not. You are obviously no top yourself otherwise you would not complain about this guy, you’d want to be tagging him. You obviously don’t have a larger dick, because, except for sociopaths, the well endowed don’t need to prove themselves by picking on the less lucky. You’re a double-standard hypocrite about porn, you know too much about this one , so you watch porn, but hate the actors? You are obviously quite “girlie” because you come across so catty ready for a girl fight. And lastly, you are obviously someone one can’t believe, you state your dumb-ass opinion “He is not just ugly” as fact, in spite of his obvious goodlooks and tight body.
Let us hope that should you find yourself on the wrong end of bigotry, homophobia, and/or employment discrimination due to your sexuality, the community will disregard your femme small limp dickedness self-loathing, and demand that even a troll like you deserve equal protection.
Bill
Its bad enough that the writer confuses Hollywood CA with Hollywood FL. Someone needs to learn to fact check their stories. But there was also one very important fact omitted from this story. In 2006, Verdugo filed an internal affairs complaint against another officer with the Hollywood FL PD, claiming the officer harassed him for being gay. The officer was only given warning and asked to be more sensitive. But this complaint brought much unwanted media attention to the Hollywood FL PD.
The fact that the offending officer only received a warning, and nothing more, could be used to show a past history of accepting discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Hollywood PD may have singled him out for futher investigation, as a punishment for the unwanted attention he brought them. This could be viewed as discrimination based on sexual orientation, as Verdugo is suggesting.
Observer
If he does find himself rehired he will be placed in an administrative position. He is a danger to fellow officers if he is placed out on patrol. As a matter of fact he is a marked man if he is placed back on patrol because other officers will no doubt target him.
ossurworld
Cuff him, Danno.
Michael
You need to list all jobs on your resume, plus all aliases you’ve used in the past. Period. Applications are pretty straight forward – “List all jobs, and/or explain gaps in employment.” “Have you ever gone by another name.” Gonna be kinda hard to appear in court saying; “Your honor, I totally forgot I was once Jeremy Wess and starred in the movie Rope Rituals.”