Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out PTFO Exclusive: The NFL Union Elected a New Leader. We Investigated the Hollywood Cover-Up They Ignored. About this episode If you’ve been asking Pablo to discuss Jeffrey Epstein… this episode is for you. The NFLPA’s election of a new executive director, David White, has brought a new level of spin, and denial, about a major scandal — and cover-up — during his tenure atop SAG-AFTRA. So PTFO summons Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio back for a fourth (!) installment of their endless NFL investigation. And with the help of a brave new character, we attempt to do what this union only says they did: tell the truth about the leadership they chose.
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Transcript 10,414 words · 15 speakers
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1:40 Speaker 02 There are kids today who did not put themselves in bad situations, parents who learned from that. And I think many more would have if SAG would have made a different decision, if David White would have made a different decision 10 years ago than he made on that day.
1:56 Pablo Torre? Right after this ad.
2:04 Pablo Torre? Yeah, Mike, I dragged you here. Let's be honest about what's happening today.
2:09 Speaker 03 Kicking and screaming.
2:10 Pablo Torre? You had reservations. You had reservations?
2:12 Speaker 03 Stranguous objections.
2:14 Pablo Torre? But the number one request that I keep on just trying to suppress, but attend to in the back of my head, and this is the number one request by far that we get from the internet, Mike, is can you please investigate Jeffrey Epstein?
2:29 Speaker 03 I've seen it so many times now, I don't think it's a joke anymore. I think they really do believe that you have the power, not me, because I haven't really added much to this production other than charm.
2:43 Speaker 03 You have the chops. You can find Epstein list if there is one.
2:48 Pablo Torre? Yeah, our YouTube channel on Monday innocuously posted the following question for our audience. Quote, "Should we find some things out this week?" And the most popular response, again, by far, metrically, was, quote, "The Epstein files, period, impress us, period." And so I fear that, yes, the only thing that can satisfy the next phase of this NFL, NFLPA, ongoing collaboration of a series that is endless, that we have been engaged in, the two of us together, is in fact digging up documents that help investigate a powerful cover-up of, yeah, pedophilia. So, hello.
3:25 Speaker 03 The act of concealment. It's an impressive thing when they pull it off.
3:32 Pablo Torre? In this case, I bring you back because another week has passed where I end up using my would-be vacation, investigating yet another major development in this story, the story about the NFL and the NFLPA. And this development should ring a bell for anybody who listened to episode three of this series only two weeks ago, because last week, Mike, the NFLPA finally elected their interim executive director to replace Lloyd Howell, who, for those who have not been paying any attention, had to resign in disgrace on account of, you know, that buried 61-page collusion ruling that we surfaced, as well as a conflict of interest side gig with the Carlyle Group, which has a financial relationship, of course, with the NFL. There were strip club receipts.
4:16 Pablo Torre? There was the ongoing FBI investigation into one team, which we dissected at length in episode three. But the guy that the NFLPA has elected to replace that guy, Lloyd Howell, is who?
4:29 Speaker 03 David White, also known as the guy who finished second in a two-man race that resulted in the hiring of Lloyd Howell. You know, it went so well the last time. The process was so flawless and unimpeachable. Let's just go back and elevate the first runner-up, much like a beauty contest when the Miss Wherever is unable to fulfill her obligations over the course of the ensuing year. They elevate the first runner-up. That's basically what they did with David White, because it did go so well in the selection of Lloyd Howell.
5:09 Pablo Torre? We are so close to making a second runner-up Miss Maine Pageant reference to Jordan Hudson.
5:14 Speaker 03 Not you, me. Not me, you.
5:16 Pablo Torre? I'm gonna, both of us, I think, is fair to point out, both of us. But David White, who was most famously, previous to this election, the head, the executive director of SAG-AFTRA, which is the Actors Guild in Hollywood.
5:30 Speaker 03 I'm a member, by the way. I'm a member. I think on the AFTRA side, not the SAG side, the AFTRA side.
5:37 Pablo Torre? Well, the AFTRA side figures in, in a second here. Put a pin in Mike Florio's membership on AFTRA and thus SAG-AFTRA, because that is a David White joint, the merging of those two unions, which we'll get to. But David White, in the present tense, is in fact the winner of, yes, this sequel to the most corrupted search in the history of pro-sports unions in America, engineered by J.C. Treter, a subject of our reporting previously. The chief strategy officer who told the union, by the way, in an article on the website at one point, "to trust the process." That was the headline before, of course, he wound up resigning himself, days after Lloyd Howell. And so, yes, now we get, Mike, the candidate that J.C.
6:18 Pablo Torre? Treter, in the reporting after all of this mess became public, we get the guy that J.C. Treter says, "Actually, I wanted this guy all along."
6:25 Speaker 03 The guy who won the 10-1 straw poll that was conducted by the executive committee, of course, there's no evidence of, and for whatever reason, they didn't bother to tell the board of player representatives before they voted for the guy who got the one in the 10-1 vote. And there's no way to prove like I'll see articles where the 10 to 1 vote by the executive committee is treated like gospel truth. There is no way to verify that that actually happened. And I wish that the people who are writing these stories, and I don't need to name names, they know who they are, and we do too. I wish they would not treat it like it is a provable, objective fact, because it is not.
7:05 Pablo Torre? Well, I fully agree. And yet, today, what I want to do is actually take them at their word. Let's say you wanted David White, because there was another development, a significant development, Mike, in the reporting around this story in the Washington Post. And this reporting was in fact, the tipping point for me, because this article from the Washington Post, it involves a series of statements from, again, what is left of this same NFLPA regime. And this regime officially pushes back on my reporting in episode three. And they argued that two issues that I brought up about David White's previous tenure as the executive
7:45 Pablo Torre? director of Mike Florio's union, SAG-AFTRA, that now that these are not problems at all, in fact. To quote the Washington Post, "The NFLPA emerged from its vetting convinced there were no issues that would disqualify White as a candidate." So before we get to these two issues in specific that the NFLPA has now waved away in the Washington Post, I just want to quickly note something, Mike, that my Hollywood sources, my own union sources have been telling me all week, which is that SAG and the NFLPA,
8:17 Pablo Torre? there's actually something of a Venn diagram here. And this is in terms of overlapping circles of leadership, but also in terms of the problems that face both actors and athletes. And in fact, Mike, you may remember one particular name from your decades of running Pro Football Talk, the nation's foremost clearinghouse for NFL news and information. And that name is Doug Allen.
8:39 Speaker 03 Doug Allen, the number two essentially for Gene Upshaw, who led the NFLPA as executive director for some 28 years.
8:48 Pablo Torre? Yes, the former Penn State linebacker under Joe Paterno, who then played for the Bills, who in 2007, left the NFLPA after 25 years, right underneath Gene Upshaw, to become SAG's executive director. But by 2009, just two years later, Doug Allen was ousted amid internal unrest of his own. And so the union selected an interim executive director, if any of this is sounding familiar at this point, to replace Doug Allen, the football guy. And the guy they chose as interim happens to be SAG's former general counsel at the time, none other than David White. And David White, Mike, would proceed to get the full-time job around 2012. And that is when he managed the merger,
9:33 Pablo Torre? the hotly debated, very controversial merger, because does Leonardo DiCaprio really want to be in a union with Mike [BLEEP] Florio? Right?
9:42 Speaker 03 I don't think, I don't think that takes high-level journalism skills to get the answer to. I think we can make an assumption as to what Leonardo would have to say.
9:55 Pablo Torre? Yeah, AFTRA, which is the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, this whole merger grows the union, that union, to more than 150,000 members. It's an enormous organism now, which meant, by the way, that David White's command of the granular details was essential. David?
10:17 Speaker 04 SAG is affiliated with the AFL-CIO through an organization known as the 4 As, which is the Association of American Artist of something with an A.
10:32 Pablo Torre? Look, I'm not here to dunk on a guy for not knowing all the acronyms, even though he is, again, the executive director of the union. I am here to point out that all of this brings us back to those two issues, Mike, those two detail-laden issues that I brought up in episode 3 that the NFLPA has waved away in The Washington Post. And issue number one was David White's willingness to play ball with management.
10:56 Pablo Torre? If you could do me a favor here and just read from the gust pages of The Washington Post.
11:01 Speaker 03 Quote, "The podcast Pablo Torri Finds Out reported that after White left SAG-AFTRA in 2021, he was rumored to be in the running to lead the alliance of motion picture and television producers. In a move that would have suggested he was willing to 'play ball with management,'" it said. The NFLPA spokesperson said White was not a candidate for such a position, but was approached by a recruiter regarding his interest in the role, and he declined."
11:31 Pablo Torre? End of quote. This is where I should also reiterate something. David White, as you know, ghosted me on LinkedIn, as well as over email and text, by the way, so I cannot verify any of this stuff. But again, I just want to accept at face value what they're saying now, which is that David White was recruited but declined the job of Hollywood Roger Goodell. And so, what I did was interview a bunch of trade union sources in Hollywood, and also just read a ton of the coverage of David White at the time, because again, it's the Hollywood press, they're all over this stuff. What becomes clear, Mike, is that David White's scouting report is actually a lot like Lloyd Howell's in one key respect.
12:12 Pablo Torre? He was known to be management-friendly, and this wasn't really in dispute. In 2009, the prominent entertainment reporter Nikki Fink wrote about David White, quote, "The big media moguls have told me they liked this guy, which is good or bad depending on a SAG member's point of view," end quote. And this week, one high-level Hollywood union source told me, quote, "David White isn't a fighter. He glad hands." And then, my source proceeded to joke, as if commuting directly with Mike Florio, quote, "David White would have buried the collusion ruling too," end quote. And, look, I want
12:53 Pablo Torre? to be fair here, because if this parallel to Lloyd Howell seems over the top, there is just one thing, one other fact pattern I want to mention for you, because David White had previously been SAG's general counsel.
13:08 Pablo Torre? It turns out that the person who brought him there at age 33, he was a prodigy of sorts, was his mentor. His mentor is a guy named Bob Pisano. And Bob Pisano worked at the same law firm David White did. Bob Pisano then left that firm to become an executive vice president at Paramount. And then he left Paramount to become the vice chairman of MGM. And then he became SAG's executive director in 2001. And I'm going to quote for you here from Backstage Magazine, Mike. This is the Hollywood trade publication. Because when Bob Pisano was hired, they said it was because of, quote, "the strength of his studio and executive background,
13:51 Pablo Torre? which was seen as an asset in contract negotiations. It was the first time the union had gone outside of its own ranks to fill the spot." End quote. And I just wonder if any of this, any of this logic, sounds a little familiar to you at this point.
14:08 Speaker 03 This all gets back to the post Demaurice Smith vision for the NFL Players Association. The idea that fighting doesn't get us where we want to be. We need to negotiate, not litigate. So even though Lloyd Howell didn't pan out, instead of swinging the pendulum back the other way, they just, as we previously established, elevated his first runner-up from a process that was hopelessly inept. Because in many respects, it was the same people making that decision. And my guess would be they had no other better idea.
14:51 Speaker 03 So let's just go back to the well and take the guy who finished second to the guy who didn't work out.
14:56 Pablo Torre? Yeah, to quote one of the NFL player reps who told ESPN about Lloyd Howell's pitch to them, just to draw the parallel as precisely as possible, they said, quote, "In a nutshell, it was like, 'I'm going to know how to negotiate with the owners because I am from their world. I'm a businessman,' the player said. 'I've been the guy fighting against unions for the corporations, so I know exactly how they think and how they do things.'" End quote. And this is a philosophy. You know, on top of all of the corruption, it is a worldview. It is an ethos to quote the Big Lebowski. Mike, and the process really brings the room together, it turns out.
15:36 Speaker 03 Here's what bothers me about it because Lloyd Howell, David White, same attitude. We don't want to fight, but we've been in management and we know how to fight unions. But as the union, we don't want to fight. And it gets back to this imbalance where, and it was articulated very well by Sean Gilbert when he tried to unseat Demora Smith a decade ago as executive director of the NFLPA. They want you, they, the owners, want you, the players, to think it's a partnership, and it's not. So, please, come, partner with us as we extend a hand in friendship, and then the other hand has a knife that is swinging around to gut you.
16:20 Pablo Torre? But the funniest parallel between the David White, Bob Pisano stuff, and the Lloyd Howell stuff, which explains all the things you just said. The funniest parallel here, Mike, is something else that I found out while diving into these guys' history together. Because when Bob Pisano was head of SAG, the Actors Union, there was a scandal. It was a conflict of interest scandal. And it was centered around the breaking news at the time that Bob Pisano, and I want you to just brace yourself for this, Bob Pisano quietly had a side gig on the board of directors of Netflix.
17:02 Pablo Torre? And according to SEC filings, Bob Pisano had made millions cashing in his Netflix stock options, if that just sounds a little, a little familiar to something we've covered.
17:15 Speaker 03 No problem at all. Everything is fine. What are you gonna do, hold back guys who are a little enterprising and want to make some money on the side? Why would you want to hold them down, Pablo?
17:24 Pablo Torre? Well, the guy that Bob Pisano got to make that argument for him and more, I'd like you to guess who he was.
17:35 Speaker 03 I assume it's David White. I would assume it's David White.
17:38 Pablo Torre? It was Bob Pisano's mentee, SAG's general counsel that he had brought to the union, David White, who, again, according to The Washington Post...
17:48 Pablo Torre? As per the NFLPA, definitely does not play ball with management. And so now you may be wondering, if you're listening to this, maybe David White has distanced himself from his mentor, because it's been a while, and that is true. But there's just one more detail about all of this, about this particular issue, that made me laugh very hard. Because last week, and this was on account of the whole Lloyd Howell conflict of interest, Carlyle Group part-time consulting gig thing, which is the parallel we've been referencing over and over again, the NFLPA also announced that David White, having now won the interim NFLPA job, had officially stepped down from the other boards he serves on. This is now officially unlike Lloyd Howell, as The Washington Post also explained.
18:34 Speaker 03 Quote, "According to the spokesperson, he is resigning from his board service, including his role on the board of Global Professional Services and consulting firm RGP," the spokesperson said. "White no longer serves as the board chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco." End quote.
18:55 Pablo Torre? And the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, I kind of can guess what that is. Cool. RGP, I don't know if you had any idea what this is. I absolutely did not. I Googled it. Stands for Resources Global Professionals. But the most relevant detail about the board of RGP, the board that David White was on, happens to concern the chairman of that board. And I will give you one guess, Mike, as to who the chairman of that board is.
19:25 Speaker 03 While the universe would be in perfect synchronization if that person were indeed Lloyd Howell, I will assume that perfection has not quite been crafted to that level. And I will say that it had to have been Robert J., I have no idea if that's his middle initial, Pizzano.
19:45 Pablo Torre? Bob Pizzano, and his name is A. Period Robert Pizzano, is the right answer. And so history does, in a sense, you know, it is rhyming here for you.
19:56 Speaker 03 Well, and this is the mindset that the union wanted in 2023. They wanted someone who had this connective tissue to management, and they got him. And it didn't work. So let's just try it again. Maybe, and there's a certain logic to it. Maybe it's like flipping a coin and it'll land on heads this time around.
20:23 Pablo Torre? Yeah. Or, or, uh, you end up showing your tails.
20:29 Pablo Torre? Papanzano said in a glowing press release last week about his mentee, quote, "We wish him while in his new position as a fully dedicated leader of the NFL Players Union," end quote. This level of responsibility and apparent transparency, though, it brings us, at long last, to the second issue that I brought up in episode three with you, that David White had faced as the NFLPA is again declaring via The Washington Post that they have fully vetted and dismissed all concerns about the guy they have elected. And this second issue to me is actually the way bigger issue.
21:10 Pablo Torre? It's the biggest story here to me because it involves SAG-AFTRA's attempt to allegedly censor a documentary, a documentary made by one of their own members, an Academy Award nominated documentarian. And this documentary was about the sexual abuse of child actors in Hollywood. And also, SAG-AFTRA's attempt to allegedly cover all this up.
21:35 Speaker 03 Quote, "In 2015, Deadline reported that SAG-AFTRA had threatened to sue director Amy Berg unless she removed all references to the union in her documentary, "An Open Secret." According to the report, the union denied it threatened a lawsuit, and White repeated that denial in an email to the union's board of directors. Berg told Deadline that the union used legal threats to try to sanitize the film. The NFLPA has reviewed this issue closely and feels confident that it has been fully briefed on the facts and context, the spokesperson told The Post. The NFLPA concluded, the spokesperson said, that the core issue was focused on the unauthorized use of SAG-AFTRA's name and brand in the film.
22:20 Speaker 03 The union requested that no inaccurate reference to SAG-AFTRA be made that tied the union to any alleged misconduct out of context. The SAG-AFTRA board was informed of and involved in this matter at the time. End quote.
22:34 Pablo Torre? A hell of a day if you've been, in fact, in our comments begging PTFO to investigate something related to the Jeffrey Epstein cover-up. Because this is gonna be the episode for you. And for this part of the series, Mike, I had to talk to somebody we have not talked about or named before. This is an impressive new character in this whole story. Ooh. And they're gonna join me after the break.
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25:10 Pablo Torre? Thank you for listening to a bunch of the NFLPA episodes we've done. So you understand what I'm generally doing here, I guess?
25:18 Speaker 02 I think so, maybe. I'm not really terribly a sports person, but my whole family is. So I get it, but I had not heard any of this story before. So when you called, it was a new shock, so.
25:32 Pablo Torre? So I can just clarify here that the name of the person I am talking to is Ann Henry. And Ann Henry is truly one of the most remarkable people that I have ever come across. And although Ann Henry did not realize this, last week, she became essential to understanding where the NFLPA, and therefore, America's most popular and powerful sport, goes from here.
25:56 Speaker 02 I am the co-founder of a nonprofit called BizParents Foundation. We are a nonprofit that serves the families of professional child actors. So our clientele, our families, have to learn how to navigate a world that's unfamiliar. Things like finances, labor unions, and contract negotiations. We started out just doing business, and then, over time, we stumbled upon a world that we weren't expecting, and that ended up being some child abuse issues.
26:27 Pablo Torre? During the day, just to be clear, Ann Henry has a different job. She works at an elementary school in Southern California. But in 2004, she co-founded BizParents, the volunteer organization she's describing for us, for a very simple reason. Ann Henry's three kids all became child actors.
26:48 Pablo Torre? And she quickly noticed something strange.
26:53 Speaker 02 When our kids were working, when they started out very small, headshots were paper. They were actual paper headshots, like think old school Hollywood, you know, black and white or color headshots. And we found our own children, our boys, being sold on eBay for lots of money, hundreds and hundreds of dollars. And they weren't sexy pictures. They were just pictures of little eight-year-old boys, like cutesy, woozy little eight-year-old boys in Oshkosh overalls. You know, and you're like, why the... Would anybody want those? And it took a while until we figured out that there were some very bad men who wanted those headshots. The world of people who should have been protecting kids weren't doing it.
27:35 Pablo Torre? Which is how the Biz Parents Foundation has since done more than any other organization to raise awareness of child abuse in Hollywood. And if this topic makes you queasy and you want to stop listening to this episode entirely, honestly, I completely understand.
27:53 Speaker 02 We probably knew who Jeffrey Epstein was around 2008, 2009. At first, you think it's crazy, and then you start to find some kernels of truth, and you go, oh, but what if? What if some of it's true? And then you're like, ew, god. And the more you start to realize there are some grains of truth, and you go, crap, well, I gotta figure out which, what's true. I gotta sort what's true and what's not.
28:22 Pablo Torre? This vetting, done by Anne Henry, who wound up serving as an FBI informant, by the way, in at least one child abuse case, proved to be well ahead of its time. And it goes well beyond Jeffrey Epstein. For instance, you may have heard about that documentary that came out last year called Quiet On Set, in which the former child actor Drake Bell, who was the star of the popular 2000s Nickelodeon show Drake and Josh, finally stepped forward to admit that he was the anonymous victim of an acting coach slash actor by the name of Brian Peck.
29:00 Speaker 07 I don't know, uh...
29:04 Speaker 07 I really don't know how to, uh...
29:12 Speaker 07 Elaborate on that on camera, really.
29:17 Speaker 08 Whatever you feel comfortable or you think would help.
29:19 Speaker 07 Why don't you do this?
29:20 Speaker 08 Yeah.
29:21 Speaker 07 Why don't you think of the worst stuff that someone can do to somebody as a sexual assault? And that'll answer your question.
29:35 Speaker 07 I don't know how else to put it.
29:42 Speaker 07 It was not a one-time thing. It was not a
29:49 Speaker 07 oops. I... No, it is... I mean, I...
29:56 Pablo Torre? You should know that Ann Henry and Biz Parents had been all over that specific story. They'd been building their own files, actually. Their own collection of tips and notes and police records and eBay transactions for years and years, warning people about how Brian Peck had pleaded no contest in 2004 to two felonies in relation to an anonymous child actor whose identity this organization of moms had chosen to protect.
30:26 Speaker 02 We knew all of it. We knew all of it. And we had kept that secret for 10 years. I don't think I've ever told anybody this, but we, um... felt very strongly about Drake Bell. I'm gonna cry because he was so brave. He is the only victim that has ever been successful in Hollywood at going all the way through and getting a sex offender convicted as a child, getting him on the sex offender list, and keeping his identity secret.
31:02 Pablo Torre? Which now brings us to July 1st, 2013, when a California law that Ann Henry and the Biz Parents Foundation had personally spent years fighting for finally passed. AB 1660, the Child Performer Protection Act, officially mandated a fingerprinted database of approved providers so that all parents could legitimately vet the people working with their kids. And, for the first time, it became a crime for anyone with a previous sex offense to work with children in Hollywood.
31:37 Pablo Torre? All of this caught the attention of an Academy Award nominated documentarian named Amy Berg, who went on to direct a pretty astonishing 2014 documentary about pedophilia in Hollywood called "An Open Secret." And that specific documentary is the entire reason that a journalist like me, who has been vetting David White's 12-year tenure as the executive director of SAG-AFTRA, and now his less than two-week tenure as the head of the NFLPA, decided to reach out to Anne Henry in the first place.
32:16 Speaker 02 Amy Berg's production company had already done a documentary about the Catholic Church, so they had some knowledge of predator behavior. So she came to us to say, "What do you guys know? Can we follow you around Sacramento as you do this law?" And at that point, we said, "You know, have we got some files for you?" So we got together and decided that, for the first time ever, we would consider letting someone look at our files. And the files were messy. They were very messy because we had no way to have the manpower as a nonprofit of volunteers to really data-sort all of those little scraps of paper and little half-notes.
32:59 Speaker 02 Because most of these people had not been convicted. It's just little things, like a parent calling us and saying, "This guy hugs my kid too much on set and he gives me the creeps." Okay, nobody's getting arrested for that, but it's one of those things that you know is a first sign. You know is something, you know, you just, your gut tells you that's bad. And when 10 people tell you that, that's the point when we all know we should do something, but you can't call the police, right? What do you do at that point? So that's what we did.
33:32 Pablo Torre? It's the database that no one had been keeping that you guys had been on a voluntary basis out of an instinct to protect the most vulnerable members of our society, let alone this Actors Guild, right? And so if that's the state of the union when it comes to how open this secret has been in Hollywood, I do want to turn my attention now to the entity, the committee, inside of SAG-AFTRA that is ostensibly charged with looking after these kids. Because the Young Performers Committee and is really essential to where and why our paths here ended up crossing over.
34:09 Speaker 02 There is a committee called the Screen Actors Guild Young Performers Committee, and it's existed for about 40 years. The committee meets once a month or so. They do orientations for kids as they join the union and talk to them about all the ways that they can help them and classes they can give them and how they should manage their money and things like that if the kids choose to partake in that kind of education.
34:34 Pablo Torre? So I'm looking up the history of it. Co-founded in 1975. And the man that I want to draw our attention to is a man by the name of Michael Hera.
34:45 Speaker 02 Michael Hera was one of the founding members of that Young Performers Committee. He's been a leader on the committee. He was one of the originals.
34:54 Speaker 09 Lot of managers now in the business. When I first came to town managing kids, I was the only one. No one else managed children. They never heard of it. They looked at me like I was crazy. Several of the established agents wouldn't even talk to me. I must be a terrible person if I was coming with all these kids.
35:10 Speaker 02 He was always the knowledge in the room. He knew the history of everything at SAG there was to know about the young performers. Everything. He knew the contracts left and right. He was the person who led all the orientations for as long as I can remember. He had a SAG Kids on his license plate. That was his personalized license plate.
35:32 Pablo Torre? Wait, wait, wait. So his, his car?
35:34 Speaker 02 His car.
35:35 Pablo Torre? The custom plate said what?
35:37 Speaker 02 SAG Kids.
35:39 Pablo Torre? Right.
35:40 Speaker 02 Yeah. His side gig, which I didn't know for some time, but I came to know, and I did know him personally. Um, his side gig was he was managing child actors, but his role in SAG was a leader. He was a leader, but a volunteer leader. He was not on payroll at SAG as far as I know.
36:00 Pablo Torre? It reminds me though, um, there was this meeting, a young performers committee meeting, which is mentioned in an open secret, and it's a meeting that you were at. This was a meeting that seemingly had been called because of a well-known publicist in Hollywood named Bob Villard.
36:16 Speaker 02 Yes.
36:17 Pablo Torre? Who had worked with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. And again, this brings us back to what you mentioned, which is eBay and those photographs.
36:26 Speaker 02 This meeting was a, was a young performers committee meeting, a regular meeting. A bunch of parents came to this meeting because it had been publicized in the LA Times that this guy, Bob Villard, was arrested and they were looking for more victims. The parents brought the article from the LA Times, a particular parent named Kathy McCall, and said, "Are you going to send out an email or something to the SAG members that are minors saying, 'Are there victims of this man?'" Like, "Don't you think people ought to know? Because if they don't get the LA Times, they're not gonna know, and this guy seems like a bad guy."
37:09 Speaker 02 Bob Villard, by the way, had already had a long history of porn.
37:14 Pablo Torre? I was looking for articles and I found, yes, LA Times, in this case, 1988, "A California agent for child actors was convicted in a New Jersey court Monday on charges of interstate transportation of child pornography. A Camden federal court jury found Robert D. Villard of Van Nuys guilty on two counts of transporting a pornographic photo and two magazines aimed at pedophiles to New Jersey on November 14th, 1986, and then transporting them back to California two days later."
37:45 Speaker 02 That had already happened. So now we're on another one. He's being picked up again. And the parents bring it to SAG and saying, "Don't you think we ought to tell people about this guy?"
37:55 Pablo Torre? About the convicted sex offender?
37:56 Speaker 02 Yeah, who's now being arrested again.
37:59 Pablo Torre? And is also a photographer of some kind.
38:04 Speaker 02 His stick was that he would do these photography sessions to other pedophile men, managers, and that was the story, was come on over, I'll take some wink, wink headshots for your clients. And the pictures would end up in all kinds of interesting internet places. We get to the meeting, we're all, there's probably 30 parents there. And Michael Hera goes bonkers and is like, "Absolutely not, we are not putting this out to the members." And 30 parents went, "What the [bleep], you know?" And that was the first time it was like, okay, something's weird about this guy. Michael Hera is not a good guy.
38:50 Pablo Torre? When did you realize the depths of what Michael Hera was actually involved in?
38:57 Speaker 02 Honestly, I didn't realize it until the interview in an open secret.
39:03 Speaker 09 I'm one of the founding members of the then Screen Actors Guild, Young Performers Committee, now SAG-AFTRA. And I have been the chair of the committee in the past. Now I'm just a foot soldier. Children are mostly willing to, to listen. They're ready to absorb things. They haven't yet developed any preconceived ideas about who they are and how they're going to get somewhere. We try and advise them what, what directions to go in. And when you're doing that, you're managing the parrot as well.
39:37 Speaker 02 I didn't know, I really didn't know. There were hints, but I never saw him with, well, I saw him with children, but I never saw him do anything with a child that was weird. I mean, my daughter was on the committee with him. I never heard any allegations. No one ever complained about him because they wouldn't have. So the only thing I saw was that one moment in that meeting years before. And until I had the phone call from production, who called me that day of the interview and said, And you are not going to believe what just happened in this interview. And I went, what? And they told me, we just got on camera this wild situation where a victim called him on the phone.
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41:08 Pablo Torre? It is crazy to me that I did not know about this until the whole David White NFLPA story brought me to this. Because it's, I mean, just to, so I talked to Amy Berg about that day. And, I mean, she calls it, you know, one of the most disturbing hours of her entire life. Let me just make sure I get all this down, yeah?
41:32 Speaker 10 What I remember is that Michael Hara was a manager of some prominent actors. And I requested an interview with him through the Screen Actors Guild, I think it was SAG-AFTRA. And their publicity person asked me a bunch of questions and then the interview was approved. And he showed up with a SAG-AFTRA representative who was sitting in the other room. And I started asking him questions and he started to confess to me things. I mean, are you attracted to young boys?
42:08 Speaker 09 Not particularly, no.
42:12 Speaker 09 So much of what goes on in these situations happen almost by accident. You get the idea that someone out there was a child predator and they were preying on children and everything they did was to steer the child into this. And a lot of the ones that I at least was aware of, they just sort of fell into it.
42:33 Speaker 11 Did anyone ever try anything on you when you were a kid actor?
42:36 Speaker 09 Well, I guess so. I don't... My whole approach to the whole thing was not sexual. I mean, it was... Yeah, I suppose somebody did. It would be hard pressed to remember anything specific. But it wasn't uncommon, let's put it that way. It's difficult when you're living in a situation where there isn't the adult supervision there should be,
43:07 Speaker 09 to see how things are going to be perceived.
43:12 Speaker 09 And I don't know what else to say about it.
43:16 Pablo Torre? The first thing that you realize is that, wait a minute, Michael Hara and Bob Villard, those guys weren't just mere acquaintances.
43:24 Speaker 02 No.
43:25 Speaker 09 I knew Bob Villard casually as someone who was in the industry and he did do publicity sometimes for clients that I had.
43:35 Pablo Torre? So then, there is a child actor who goes by the name of Joey C. Now, a grown-up in the film. And he says, "In fact, I met Bob Villard through a guy named Michael Hara."
43:51 Speaker 12 So I meet Bob Villard as a publicist who can... He's a good photographer, bring exposure and whatnot. I believe through Michael Hara.
43:59 Speaker 02 He was one of our biggest eBay sellers. It became obvious to us that Bob Villard was selling candid photos that he had taken.
44:08 Speaker 12 You're there for a weekend. I mean, he feels just comfortable enough to try to touch you when you drank a few beers or it's always good to get that few beers and he tries to touch me.
44:21 Speaker 02 We always knew his photo style because he typically had the kids shirtless, typically took an angle that was from the top down. So that the children are looking up at the camera as they would be looking up at the predator in an abuse situation.
44:37 Pablo Torre? So now, all these questions are being raised about, okay, wait, so the Michael Hara part of this thing, what was he doing? And there's another child actor, actually, who is interviewed in this film, again, now a grown-up. His name is James G. And he observes something about Michael Hara's home, which also kind of like set me back a couple of feet.
45:01 Speaker 13 You know, being up sometimes really early to go to these auditions and stuff, that was when Michael had, Michael Hara had approached me and said, you know, well, you can come and stay at our, at my house with, you know, the other guys that are there. He had three other guys staying in the house with him that were his clients.
45:21 Speaker 09 Many of the kids that I worked with couldn't have even been able to take advantage of being in the industry had they had to have their families move here with them.
45:34 Speaker 13 From 10, 11 to 16, 17, but I still thought it was rather odd, you know, that someone would let their 10-year-old son move in with, at the time, I think, mid-50s-year-old man.
45:50 Speaker 09 I do see the possibility that things can be misinterpreted, and I try to be very aware of that. No matter how closely you're working with someone, and you do work closely with clients in these situations, there still has to be that professional line in there where you say, "We're not stepping over this."
46:11 Speaker 02 Just so you know, there is zero norm for that in the entertainment industry. None, none whatsoever. It ties to current events in the, at Jeffrey Epstein world. Why do we have models giving massages? Why did he have, you know? It's that. It's that's what's happening. They're convincing people that they need an opportunity and that they can provide them an opportunity that will further their skills and their like, you know, there's this is a lucky opportunity. They'll give them all the circumstances and possibilities if they just do this.
46:48 Pablo Torre? Right.
46:49 Speaker 02 No. No.
46:54 Pablo Torre? All of this brings us to Joey C. Calling up Michael Hera on camera.
47:06 Speaker 14 Yes?
47:07 Speaker 12 Hello, Michael?
47:09 Speaker 14 Yes.
47:10 Speaker 12 Hi, this is Joey.
47:15 Speaker 14 Well, hello, Joey.
47:16 Speaker 12 Yeah, how are you?
47:17 Speaker 14 How are you?
47:18 Speaker 12 What, you were what?
47:19 Speaker 14 I'm, I was just thinking about you.
47:21 Speaker 12 Oh, you were?
47:23 Speaker 14 Yeah, I was. I was reading an old Hawaii magazine and I was thinking about you.
47:28 Speaker 12 Yeah, well, it's been a while, huh?
47:31 Speaker 14 Yeah, it has. I haven't talked to you in a while. I kinda lost track of you.
47:35 Speaker 12 Yeah. What about you? What are you doing?
47:39 Speaker 14 I'm retired.
47:40 Speaker 12 You have?
47:41 Speaker 14 It's, yeah. Um, I still have one or two clients that still come around, but, um, it's not like it was. So I'm not taking on anybody new. I say that and then watch, I'll do it, but.
47:53 Speaker 12 What about, um, have you heard from Bob lately?
47:58 Speaker 14 Bob?
47:58 Speaker 12 Bob Vallard?
48:00 Speaker 14 Oh, Bob Vallard. Last I heard, he was in prison, Joey.
48:04 Speaker 12 Oh, is that right? For what?
48:06 Speaker 14 Well, I assume some sort of a problem with children, but as they tried several times to get him and somehow rather they didn't. But last I heard, he was, so.
48:16 Speaker 12 Hmm.
48:17 Speaker 14 Now, I don't know anything about that. I don't know how long it was or anything else. So, no, I haven't heard from him in a long, long time.
48:24 Speaker 12 Ah.
48:25 Speaker 14 I'm a little forgotten.
48:26 Speaker 12 Well, that's kind of the reason why I got out of the business. I don't know if you ever remember, they slit his lip open with throwing something at him and I was on my way home never to come back.
48:41 Speaker 12 I've gone through a lot of therapy and I don't condone it, anything that he tried to do. And I got, lord knows what he's done to anybody else, I don't know.
48:54 Speaker 14 I don't know, Joey. And, you know, I take these things with a grain of salt. I'm not sure how horrible they really are.
49:02 Pablo Torre? At that point in the documentary, you're already like, okay. So Michael Hara, who is this longtime SAG-AFTRA official, who was the face of this committee ostensibly there to look after these kids. This is him on a phone call that he does not seem to know is being recorded for this documentary, which we're getting like the candid spin that he would give a kid that he knew, Joey C. And already you're like, oh, he's just lying.
49:35 Speaker 02 Well, yeah, and he's spinning. The guy's telling him, this traumatized me. Clearly, he's saying, I've been traumatized. And his answer is, I don't know how bad it is.
49:45 Pablo Torre? And it just proceeds from there.
49:48 Speaker 12 Well, I don't think it's right for anybody to take advantage of anybody. And I think that the whole thing is rotten, what he tried to do to me. And quite frankly, I didn't like what, you know, when you tried to have me sleep in your bed and touch me and everything. I hated that too.
50:10 Speaker 14 That was something unwanted. I shouldn't have done it. And there's no way you can undo that.
50:21 Speaker 14 It certainly is something I shouldn't have done.
50:25 Pablo Torre? That is just one of the most astonishing things I've heard on tape. Just that candid confession that notably, by the way, when Amy Berg gets Michael Hara across from her in the chair with that SAG-AFTRA representative monitoring the interview, he then proceeds to say something different.
50:50 Speaker 09 I don't know what Joey is remembering, but I don't remember anything that would have caused him to feel that way. All I can say is that as a result of the situation he was in, not only with me, but with others, that that was how he perceived something. It certainly wasn't anything I intended, and that was going to be my response to it.
51:14 Speaker 02 SAG would have known, probably within minutes of that interview, they would have known that he had admitted to whatever happened in that interview.
51:26 Speaker 02 We wondered if they were going to do anything about that. It was silent. We waited, we waited. It took months and months and months. And the next thing we heard was that SAG was going to sue the production.
51:49 Pablo Torre? And that's where David White enters the story.
51:53 Speaker 02 Yes.
51:55 Pablo Torre? So I want to recap this because it is a remarkable thing, given that now, hopefully, people listening to this story understand what the letter that the counsel, the outside counsel hired by SAG-AFTRA, which was run by its executive director, David White, what that letter said to the makers of the film, Amy Berg and her production company. Because Deadline first reported this in June of 2015, I'll just quote the Deadline piece by David Robb, quote, "It may be the first time a Hollywood union has ever threatened to take legal action against a filmmaker over the content of a film," end quote.
52:37 Pablo Torre? And this letter, I mean, is also astounding to go back and look at it. And I've now reviewed a copy of the letter sent by SAG-AFTRA, their outside counsel. It is dated December 3rd, 2014. The bottom reads, quote, "This email constitutes a confidential legal communication and may not be published in any manner," end quote. Well, Deadline obtained a copy, I have as well. And the letter CCs their client, David White, among other SAG-AFTRA officials. What was your reaction when you heard about this letter?
53:09 Speaker 02 My first reaction was, wait a minute, the union is censoring the film? I don't, I don't understand. Because a union is, they're, they're, that's exactly what they don't do. A union, the Screen Actors Guild is about creativity, about free speech. It's exactly what they do not do. That is completely antithetical to their mission. That makes no sense. Then, when you go, oh, they're censoring a film about the abuse of actors? What? That's even number two, strike two. That makes no sense whatsoever. That doesn't make any sense. And then when I saw the letter, I realized it wasn't from SAG itself.
53:54 Speaker 02 It was from an outside attorney, which seemed weird too, because SAG has an entire floor of attorneys. Why would SAG, who deals with copyright law every day? Why would they go outside to an outside attorney? That seemed odd too. So when I finally saw it, I went, oh, litigation attorney. Oh, this is, they're gonna sue. This is a litigation. This isn't a nice request to please take our logo off something. This is, they're gonna sue.
54:23 Pablo Torre? The letter, what it demands is a number of things. I just want to walk through this as clearly as I can with you because the first thing, they wanted Amy Berg to remove the references and the chyrons on screen that indicate that Michael Hera had any connection to The Young Performer's Theory, which, again, he co-founded and led for years and was a member of at the time of the interview.
54:46 Speaker 02 Yeah.
54:47 Pablo Torre? This is the quote from, from the outside counsel. "Please be advised that Mr. Hera is not now," parentheses, "and was not at the time this documentary was screened." And parentheses, "A member of or in any other way affiliated with the quote, "SAG-AFTRA Young Performers Committee," end quote. Whatever allegations may have been leveled against Mr. Hara have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with SAG-AFTRA or any of its committees," end quote. So for instance, in other words, that bite we heard before in which Michael Harris says on tape.
55:21 Speaker 09 I'm one of the founding members of the then Screen Actors Guild Young Performers Committee, now SAG-AFTRA, and I have been the chair of the committee in the past. Now I'm just a foot soldier.
55:34 Pablo Torre? The union, David White's union, wanted that removed from the film. The real goal that they're setting out to achieve becomes revealed in point number two, because the letter then proceeds to tell Amy Berg to delete all references in the film to the SAG-AFTRA Young Performers Committee of any kind. Quote, "Demand is hereby made that no references to SAG, to SAG-AFTRA, or to any SAG-AFTRA committees be included in any portions of this documentary," end quote.
56:10 Speaker 02 And it's like, hey, hey, hey, it's a film about child actors. Hate to tell you, what the, what are you talking about?
56:17 Pablo Torre? And it's just like, how can, but how can you erase, how can you erase the entire reason why Michael Hara was a person of influence? From the story of Michael Hara's confessed sexual assault? They then proceed to demand that Amy Berg cut a scene showing the front of the union's building and the large SAG-AFTRA One Union logo that was on it. They wanted that part cut, and then they demanded that Amy Berg cut a large portion of her interview with you. As the co-founder of Biz Parents, again, the organization that has done more than any other one that I'm aware of, to raise awareness.
56:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
56:56 Pablo Torre? And by the way, the part seems to be the that that story that you told me in which the Young Performers Committee is gathering to discuss what to do with publicists slash photographer slash pedophile Bob Velart. Like, that was the part where they were like, we can't have that in there.
57:15 Speaker 02 It's frustrating because it's so indicative of their misunderstanding of the entire problem. And it frustrates me because we're 10 years later and still aren't getting it. That the whole problem is they don't get predator behavior. And that's why we still have a problem. At that point, when that inflection point happens, you have to decide how you're going to respond. And at the point that you respond, that's your choice. That point, SAG had a choice that day. They could have said, wow, you know what? We're faced with a situation that Michael Hera, one of our volunteers, screwed up. And you know what? We're kicking him out this minute, five minutes after that interview. And we're issuing a press release and we're saying how horrible this is.
58:00 Speaker 02 And we're organizing 5 billion things to make it right. That's what we're doing. That's leadership. That's what they could have done. And here we are 10 years later, and David White is still still denying it 10 years later.
58:16 Pablo Torre? I was thinking about like, what would an executive director of the SAG-AFTRA organization, what could he have done? What should he have done? Even if his concern was simply, man, you know, I don't want a viewer of this documentary to think that SAG-AFTRA intentionally
58:35 Speaker 02 Sure.
58:36 Pablo Torre? propped up a guy they knew was a pedophile. We should clarify that we're as shocked and as horrified as anybody to learn this. But instead, what happens is that letter is sent threatening legal action and then
58:51 Pablo Torre? There's a cover up of the cover up.
58:54 Speaker 02 Right.
58:54 Pablo Torre? Right? So they attempt to cover up the fact that SAG-AFTRA is certainly a character in this story in a meaningful way. Then they try to spin, I mean, David White, later that month, June 2015, he sends an email to the board of directors of SAG-AFTRA claiming that he never threatened to sue the filmmakers.
59:15 Speaker 02 Right, because at this point, the circumstances around it at that point in time, it's now they realize this film is screening in LA. It's got press. There's news articles every day about this film. There's every, every major news article is out there. It's on the news every night. There's talk. And it isn't playing well that SAG is trying to censor this film.
59:39 Pablo Torre? And then in the email to the board of directors, David White writes, quote, "As you may already know, an inaccurate story about SAG-AFTRA posted online at Deadline today." End quote. And he references also a statement that the Guild had given Deadline. And I'll quote that as well. "We have not yet threatened to sue this producer, nor did we attempt to suppress any factual or accurate information in this production." End quote. Meanwhile, I should point out that Deadline reported something about the lawyer. The lawyer, the outside counsel that SAG-AFTRA hired, would give Deadline, the publication, the following statement, quote, "Our firm has been authorized to pursue all appropriate legal remedies."
1:00:24 Pablo Torre? End quote. And there might be a hilarious semantic difference between a lawyer telling you that "we are authorized to pursue all appropriate legal remedies" and a lawyer explicitly saying, "I'm about to sue you." But if anybody can detect that distinction and tell me the difference, I am all ears.
1:00:47 Speaker 02 Especially when that same lawyer identifies themselves in the very first sentence as, "we are litigation attorneys for SAG-AFTRA."
1:00:56 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:00:58 Pablo Torre? But the point being here that I came to you because the NFLPA, which has now elected David White, the aforementioned executive director of SAG-AFTRA, as their interim executive director. And the NFLPA told The Washington Post that the "core issue" was focused on the unauthorized use of SAG-AFTRA's name and brand in the film. End quote. Which is to say, this is a real logo problem.
1:01:27 Speaker 02 I'm not a football girl, you know? However, I would have to say that I think anyone who knows the facts of what happened 10 years ago would have to say there is no way that anyone who was aware in Hollywood would say this was a logo issue. It wasn't about just their logo. And it was all about how a leader reacts to a crisis situation.
1:02:01 Pablo Torre? And so, on account of everything you just heard, I had to fact-check one more thing with both Amy Berg, the director of An Open Secret, and Anne Henry, the co-founder of the Biz Parents Foundation, our two key characters in this sordid story. And this thing is, to me, the most obvious thing in this entire episode, maybe this entire saga. Because again, I had just read an article in The Washington Post last week that said this. Quote, "The NFLPA has reviewed this issue closely and feels confident that it has been fully briefed on the facts and context." End quote. And so my last question for Amy Berg and Anne Henry, Ben,
1:02:45 Pablo Torre? was simple. Did anyone ever contact you from the NFLPA or a search firm working for the NFLPA about David White?
1:02:56 Speaker 02 No, they never did.
1:02:59 Pablo Torre? Has anyone from the NFLPA, anybody from a search firm hired by the NFLPA, anybody from the world of sports, have they reached out to you?
1:03:07 Speaker 02 No one. No one has contacted me about this at all. Nothing.
1:03:12 Pablo Torre? And so I'm just left here, I guess, to wonder about something that I find myself asking a lot in this apparently endless investigation. Was this malice or incompetence? And is that just another attempted distinction at this point? Without much of a difference?
1:03:37 Speaker 02 I get it's hard content. I do. I get, I don't want to see it. I totally get it. I mean, but it is, it is a good movie. I'm grateful for the people who invested money to make a movie like this. That movie has saved a lot of lives and, and I appreciate that. I mean, there are kids today who did not put themselves in bad situations, parents who learned from that. And I think many more would have if SAG would have made a different decision, if David White would have made a different decision 10 years ago than he made on that day. I'm sure that no one thought it was going to roll around 10 years later either.
1:04:15 Pablo Torre? Yeah, I'm not sure I foresaw me talking to you 10 years later.
1:04:19 Speaker 02 Yeah. Yeah. Talking about the NFL was not on my bingo card this week either. Let me tell you, Pablo.
1:04:46 Pablo Torre? And so just before I finally let you go here, I do just need to acknowledge that the NFL, the biggest cultural force in America, has gone from being absolutely terrified of the collusion ruling, the 61-page PDF that I released in episode one, to now licking their chops at the management-friendly, empty suits that we've met in episode four. Because this NFLPA regime, out of malice or incompetence, seems designed to give the league what the league wants, ultimately. Which would be an 18th regular season NFL game and an even bigger share of the financial
1:05:25 Pablo Torre? pie, although the NFLPA does not seem eager to discuss any of this with noted SAG-AFTRA member, Mike Florio.
1:05:35 Speaker 03 I asked the union for an interview of David White. I'll do it by phone, I'll do it by video, I'll do it in person. And they said, "We'll put you on the list." And that was some five days ago, and I've yet to hear anything more.
1:05:50 Pablo Torre? And in their defense, these guys have said it all, right? The union's executive committee, led by President Jalen Reeves-Maven, is not only trusting J.C. Tretter's stupidly broken process, they are also doubling down on their designed results. Just listen again to executive committee member Austin Eckler, the Commander's star running back, who said this to The Athletic in July after Lloyd Howell had resigned.
1:06:22 Speaker 03 Quote, "I love what we did as far as our process. There were a few issues that wound up biting us, that we couldn't have foreseen at the time, but I like where we're at," end quote.
1:06:37 Pablo Torre? And so what I found out today, after four episodes of vetting these leaders and hearing the truth about Michael Hara, the open secret David White did not want you to know, is the answer to that question that I posed a bit earlier. Is this malice or incompetence? And my answer looks a lot like the NFLPA's approach to the only two finalists in the most [BLEEP] search process in sports union history.
1:07:10 Pablo Torre? Why not both?
1:07:22 Pablo Torre? This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.
1:07:28 Pablo Torre? And I'll talk to you next time.
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