LOS ANGELES — Patricia Salazar, the Special Hearing Officer for the Labor Commissioner in the case of five former clients petitioning for the revocation of Derek Hay and LA Direct’s talent agency license, ruled this morning that the press was to be excluded from today’s evidentiary hearing.
Speaking to XBIZ after a closed-door meeting with the attorneys for the petitioners and for Hay, Salazar established that “the press will be excluded from this hearing for reasons of confidentiality.”
This is a surprising decision after what had been open hearings where the petitioners, Hay and their respective witnesses bore testimony about their experience of the situations covered by the original petition.
Legal experts familiar with the case told XBIZ that today’s hearing would not have introduced any new major evidence, and that it would be mostly a question of deciding which objections raised during the testimony phase will be upheld or overruled and which pieces of evidence already presented would be on the record or would be excluded.
During the testimony phase, Salazar ordered some testimony from the first two days, back in September, to be marked as confidential. XBIZ has learned that these items concerned a witness’ legal name and an unrelated case involving an adult studio that is only very tangentially connected to the main body of evidence.
Salazar’s decision to hold this hearing behind closed doors and away from public scrutiny appears at odds with the expectations for this routine phase of the legal proceedings, which will precede her analysis of the record and her decision about Hay's license. Salazar's opinion is likely to be issued in early 2020.
XBIZ had spoken with the Allan Gelbard, the petitioners’ attorney, before the hearing and he appeared open to having the press cover it.
The first set of hearings took place September 23-27 with the depositions and cross-examinations of all five models, previously known only as Jane Does 1-5, but now identified, by their stage names only, as Charlotte Cross (JD1), Sofi Ryan (JD2), Andi Rye (JD3), Hadley Viscara (JD4) and Shay Evans (JD5).
The second set of hearings took place November 4-8 and culminated with Derek Hay’s testimony.
For XBIZ’s continuing coverage of the Derek Hay/LA Direct Labor Board case, click here.