Check out our advertisers www.risingstarpr.com www.auditionporn.com/tour1, www.eruptionxl.com www.sexucrave.com and www.vantagedist.com/page/manufacturers/id/1895/manufacturer/Brandxxx_Pictures.html; www.galaxypublicity.com
Follow Gene Ross at twitter@GeneRoss3; Follow AdultFYI at twitter@Adultfyi1
from www.mysanantonio.com – A wannabe reality TV producer chose Friday to have a judge instead of a jury decide whether he tricked aspiring models to have sex with him and others and collected explicit images of them by promising 15 minutes of fame.
Gemase Lee Simmons, 35, will go on trial Monday on 39 federal counts, including production/receipt of child pornography, extortion and bank fraud.
The FBI has identified more than 100 victims of the purported scam, which included scouring Facebook public accounts for people seeking to be discovered, and creating more than 100 bank accounts to run check-kiting schemes.
A bench trial “certainly streamlines things for the judge,” said Robert Gebbia, one of Simmons’ lawyers. “I think it’s a big time-saver.”
Also, Gebbia said the salacious details expected in the trial had the “potential to enflame the passion of the jurors.”
Almost a third of the alleged victims might testify, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bettina Richardson told U.S. District Judge Fred Biery.
“Mr. Simmons is accused of coercing these young girls and a young boy into transmitting photos to him and extorted them,” U.S. Attorney Tracy Thompson told Biery at a separate hearing Thursday.
Also charged is Rebecca Goodlow, 21, of San Antonio, who the FBI says initially appeared to be a victim lured to Simmons by promises of a career with G2 News, an entity he reportedly ran. But the FBI said Goodlow began recruiting others and ended up charged herself because she defied instructions to stay away from a 17-year-old victim.
Simmons already was on probation for a state car theft charge in February 2012 when the FBI raided his apartment on Vance Jackson Road and vehicles driven by him and Goodlow.
Agents recovered computer memory cards with 900 photos and 21 videos of a teen girl having oral sex alternately with Goodlow and Simmons, the FBI has said, as well as sexual or nude images she texted at Simmons’ request to “modeling agents” who turned out to be Simmons.
The FBI said Simmons was collecting explicit images of the young women and men, and used the text features of separate mobile phone accounts to pose as different people in an effort to coerce, pressure and extort them.
Simmons previously was featured on Dateline over allegations that he duped people into thinking he was filming a reality TV show about modeling, then put the moves on them.