Bryan Singer sex abuse accuser names three more Hollywood bigwigs in lawsuits (NY Daily News)
The Nevada actor who publicly accused “X-Men” director Bryan Singer of molesting him when he was 15 sued three other Hollywood figures on Monday claiming they too preyed on him during his vulnerable teenage years.
Michael Egan III, 31, filed the new federal lawsuits in Hawaii against Garth R. Ancier, Gary Wayne Goddard, and David Alexander Neuman.
Egan and his lawyer, Jeff Herman, who previously represented victims in the molestation lawsuits against Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash, said the three men were allegedly part, along with Singer, of a “sordid sex ring” that “groomed” underage boys to be sexually victimized in the late ’90s.
They allegedly attended “notorious parties” in Los Angeles and Hawaii, where underage boys were plied with drugs, alcohol and gifts — and sometimes subjected to violence, according to Egan and his lawyer.
The lawsuits accuse the three of intentional infliction of emotional distress, battery, assault and invasion of privacy.
Neuman vehemently denied the allegations on Twitter.
“I just want everyone to know right now that the disgusting allegations made against me are COMPLETELY FALSE,” Neuman said in multiple Twitter postings Monday afternoon. “Also very shocking in that they don’t just stretch the truth, they are whole-cloth lies with zero basis in reality or truth.”
He called the allegations “sickening, and very evil,” and promised to “set the record straight.”
Goddard’s lawyer said his client was out of the country and had not seen the lawsuit.
“Based on what we have heard, the allegations are without merit,” Goddard’s lawyer Alan Grodin said in a statement to the Daily News. “Once we have seen the complaint, we will respond appropriately.”
Efforts to reach Ancier were not immediately successful.
The allegations in the three new lawsuits are similar to the legal action Egan filed against Singer last week.
Egan claims Ancier gave him drug-laced wine on several occasions and forcibly sodomized him as a juvenile. Ancier, 56, helped launch The WB television network in the 1990s and later served as president of NBC Entertainment.
Egan’s lawsuit against Goddard, 61, alleges the defendant, a producer of Broadway shows and theme park rides, gave him “mind-altering substances,” groped him and forcibly sodomized him.
The suit against Neuman, a former Disney exec, makes the same allegations.
“I wouldn’t wish it on any of my worst enemies, to go through what I went through as a child,” Egan said at a press conference Monday.
He said he decided to come forward with the allegations after more than a decade because he is now under the care of a trauma therapist and finally found a lawyer willing to “protect” him.
“You won’t have another chance to hurt another victim,” he told the Daily News Monday, addressing the men named in his lawsuits. “You won’t have a chance to hurt another child.”
Egan’s mother, Bonnie Mound, broke down crying during the press conference, saying her son kept quiet about the abuse he allegedly suffered from age 15 to 17 because he was “petrified” of threats of retaliatory physical abuse.
She said she wrote hundreds of letters to members of law enforcement and the media but got nowhere.
Mound scoffed at claims she and her son are searching for a payday.
“It’s not about money, it’s about disarming these pedophiles who use their wealth and power to escape justice,” she said, sobbing.
Egan’s lawsuits were filed in Hawaii thanks to law that temporarily suspends the statute of limitations on sex abuse claims brought in civil cases.
Herman said another alleged victim — a friend of Egan’s who was with him at parties where the alleged abuse took place — plans to come forward with similar allegations but suffers from serious medical issues stemming from the abuse, including a past stroke and alcoholism, and has trouble talking.
Egan’s earlier lawsuit against the “X-Men” director claims Singer repeatedly sexually abused him when he was a teen in the late 90s. The accusations include forced sodomy.
Singer’s lawyer Marty Singer denied the allegations, calling them defamatory and raising the possibility of a counter lawsuit.
“I’m not going to be bullied,” Herman said Monday.