A Los Angeles judge on Tuesday announced that porn star ron jeremy mentally incompetent to stand trial in dozens of cases of rape and sexual assault.
Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Harris said at a hearing that after reviewing reports from both prosecutors and Jeremy’s defense that he was in “irreparable neurocognitive decline” from which he was unlikely to recover.
Prosecutors said he should be reevaluated from time to time.
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The 69-year-old Jeremy, whose legal name is Ronald Hyatt, will have a hearing next month on his admission to a state hospital.
Jeremy pleaded not guilty after being indicted by a grand jury on 34 counts of sexual assault, including 12 counts of rape.
“When he was arrested two years ago I said he would be found innocent of all charges,” Stuart Goldfarb, Jeremy’s attorney, said in an email. “Two years have passed and with the additional discovery I have received I am confident that he would have been found innocent. It is unfortunate because of his mental state that he will not go to trial and have the opportunity to clear his name.”
Jeremy, who has been in jail since his arrest in 2020, did not attend the hearing.
An email seeking comment Tuesday from the district attorney’s office was not immediately returned.
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Nicknamed “The Hedgehog”, Jeremy has been one of the best-known and most prolific actors in the porn industry for decades, and became a recognizable pop cultural novelty through reality shows, public appearances, and music videos.
He has long been a magnet for autograph and selfie seekers, the way he first encountered most of the women and girls aged 15 to 51 who are accused of assault between 1990 and 2019 .
According to grand jury testimony from the women and girls obtained by The Associated Press, Jeremy lured and grilled, trapped and sexually assaulted them in a small, secluded location, often in the bathroom of a West Hollywood bar.
The Los Angeles Times first reported that Jeremy was not going to trial.
In 2017, allegations from a district attorney’s task force set up to investigate entertainment industry sexual misconduct following reports about Harvey Weinstein made the #metoo movement an international phenomenon.
Jeremy was among a handful of people charged with the task force’s work, along with Weinstein himself, who was convicted of rape and sexual assault in December.
Prosecutors are still deciding whether to retry Weinstein on several counts for which his juries were deadlocked. They plan to re-trial actor Danny Masterson on three counts of rape after his jury failed to reach a verdict last month.
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