Ron Jeremy charged with raping 3 women, sexually assaulting another
Ron Jeremy, a famed porn performer and actor with more than 1,500 roles on his resume, was charged in Los Angeles on Tuesday with sexually assaulting four women, Variety reports.
Jeremy faces three charges of forcible rape, three charges of forcible penetration by a foreign object, one count of forcible oral copulation, and one count of sexual battery. One charge dates back to 2014, when Jeremy is accused of raping a 25-year old woman at a home in West Hollywood. The other three women claim Jeremy assaulted them at a West Hollywood bar in separate incidents in 2017 and 2019. According to prosecutors, he could face up to 90 years to life in prison.
The charges come after years of whispers about Jeremy’s aggressive behavior, which was put under the spotlight in 2017 after a woman named Ginger Banks released a viral YouTube video detailing several incidents of alleged sexual misconduct, nonconsensual digital penetration, and rape. Rolling Stone followed the video with a piece unpacking a number of other allegations against the actor.
Jeremy denied any wrongdoing, saying all interactions were consensual. “I have never and would never rape anyone,” he said at the time. “All serious allegations have been investigated by police and dismissed by judges, as have most of the accusations of ‘groping.’ I have never been charged nor spent one day in court for any of this.”
“He doesn’t hear no,” former adult performer Jennifer Steele told Rolling Stone in 2017. Another adult performer, Julia Ann, added, “I think Ron is an anomaly, and you’d be hard-pressed to say there’s any other person who’s been able to publicly sexually harass or assault people and get away with it.”
Jeremy used his status as an elder statesman of the adult industry to couch his actions. “But seriously, if you were going to be around Ron Jeremy, wouldn’t you assume that I’d be a little bit touchy feely?” he said. “Yes. This is what I do for a living. I am not Kevin Spacey, Louis CK, Weinstein, or Cosby.”