Acworth Letter to AHF: 'Cease & Desist' Lies About HIV on Set

SAN FRANCISCO—Kink.com owner Peter Acworth has had his attorney, Karen Tynan, send a letter to AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) president Michael Weinstein demanding that he and his "paid adult performers"—including Cameron Bay and Rod Daily—"cease and desist" making defamatory statements about Cybernet Entertainment, the company that does business as Kink.com. "Your intentional behavior has been nothing short of a campaign of deceitfulness to imply on-set transmissions of HIV which you know did not happen," Tynan charged on Cybernet's behalf. "Your statements made against Cybernet Entertainment LLC (dba Kink.com) and Peter Acworth are defamatory and must stop." Tynan made specific reference to a press conference held on September 18, 2013, which she said "is particularly helpful in examining the litany of tortuous conduct these past months. Even your own archives evidence the defamation you have repeatedly perpetrated" 'Michael Weinstein, head of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation and a backer of the condom law, said he suspects that Bay contracted the virus on a set.' Last month, he said, the actress tested negative for HIV, and this month, she tested positive. In one film that she worked on between the tests, it appears that condoms were not used, Weinstein said. 'It's a tragedy for her,' he said. 'Obviously she was infected by someone.'" Tynan said that the above-noted press conference and press release are just two examples of many "wherein you claim that these two adult film performers [were] infected on the set, implying that it happened on a Cybernet Entertainment set, and it's easy to see a pattern of malicious and purposeful defamation that has remained unchecked by the AHF board and officers." According to Tynan, the various statements made by Weinstein, Bay and Daily in front of the California legislature are protected as "political statements" under both the First Amendment and California's anti-SLAPP statutes, but "your press releases, press conferences and public statements have created substantial liability based upon a variety of tort theories including libel, libel per se, slander, trade libel, and intentional and negligent interference with business relations." Tynan also charged that, "With the payments made to your performers as well as the expenses AHF has paid for them, they are clearly in your employ and acting as your direct agents," which would make Weinstein and/or AHF responsible for any libelous/defamatory statements the pair made in non-legislative venues. The bulk of the letter details AHF's alleged liability under the various tort theories, with Tynan noting that despite the fact that both Weinstein and Acworth are public figures, who normally would have heightened protections against the claims, "the statements made by you and your cohorts will be shown to have been made with malice," Tynan stated. "You must be aware that no other performers have tested positive for HIV, making it impossible for these infections to have happened on set, yet you continue to state that performers contracted HIV on an adult film set, Cybernet's film set." For example, at an AHF press conference held on September 18, 2013, Bay charged that on a Kink.com set, "there was an incident with a performer [Xander Corvus] I was working with, and he ended up with a cut on the tip of his penis, and he was bleeding. They stopped production; Rod was there; they asked him to cover; he got ready, and the performer said, no, he could continue to work, and we continued to work even though he was bleeding from the cut, and we did not use condoms. There were up to like 50 people in the room with us, and we were laying on top of [unintelligible], and they were touching inappropriately from time to time, and it all happened so fast that I didn't realize how unsafe it was until I saw the pictures that Rod showed me." Corvus later tested negative for HIV. Such statements by Bay and others, Tynan claimed, have had an adverse effect on Kink's business, to the point of Weinstein and his associates having committed "trade libel," which Tynan quoted from a legal reference book to describe the matter as "[t]he particular form of injurious falsehood that involves disparagement of quality," and also "the publication of matter disparaging the quality of another's land, chattels or intangible things, that the publisher should recognize as likely to result in pecuniary loss to the other through the conduct of a third person in respect to the other's interests in the property." She also noted that to be found guilty of committing trade libel does not require a finding of malice on the part of the speaker/publisher. Tynan also brought up a possible charge of "Intentional and Negligent Interference with Business Relations," noting that "For the past nine months, you and your performers have regularly and repeatedly defamed Cybernet Entertainment and Peter Acworth in order to create model distrust of the company and financial hardship for the company. The defamatory statements have caused a distrust by the models, blogs have repeated your lies, and the reputation of Cybernet Entertainment, as Kink.com, has suffered greatly. "Your acts have been deliberate, intentional, and strategic," she charged. "All meant to create havoc and to distress Cybernet Entertainment financially. All of the financial damages are directly related to your concerted actions to spread falsehoods and inaccuracies about the company and its founder." Acworth, when contacted by AVN, stood firmly behind Tynan's letter and its accusations. "Weinstein wants headlines at any cost, and it doesn't matter to him that what he says is insupportable," Acworth said. "When he sees a chance to attack the adult industry, he goes for it, and we just decided that we're not going to just sit and take it. You cannot keep repeating things that are known to be untrue, things that affect our business and our reputation, without consequence. He's a bully that uses people's fear and misunderstanding around HIV as a weapon. It's disgraceful.