Derrick Burts: Lies and Alibis

Yesterday, I offered some commentary on AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s latest victimfest “press event”  and took porn gossip blogger Mike South to task for his sensationalism, inaccuracy, and biased, pro-AHF “reporting.”

Along the way, I mentioned AHF spokesperson and former “crossover performer” Derrick Burts, whom South has commended in the past for his honesty and integrity. Burts was mentioned simply in passing, although I later added, in a comment:

Cameron [Bay] doesn’t only need money for doctors; she has a slew of criminal charges, too. This is Derrick Burts redux.

For some reason, South’s little buddy, Derrick Burts, felt compelled to respond with a comment.

Burts wrote:

Lol, you make it seem like I am some HORRIBLE criminal. What a joke! I dont have a SINGLE felony on my record. I have a wet and reckless for blowing a .09 back in 2010 on St. Patties Day. I had a bench warrant for unpaid fines in Orange County for that. I had a Disturbing the Peace misdemeanor that happened in Los Angeles after attending a porn party in Hollywood and having a big argument out in the middle of the street with my girlfriend at the time. She was trying to drive the car home drunk and I was trying to stop her. She hit the parked car in front of her and the car alarm went off. The owners of the car came out and called the police to file a report for the accident. The bench warrant for that was for failure to complete a class I was ordered to take, which was due to the fact that I moved out of LA.

The last thing was for taking an old TV from the hotel I worked at. I was given permission from the manager to take the television out of storage since they were no longer using it. The television was an old box TV not even worth 20$ on Craigslist. When the owner of the hotel noticed the TV from storage missing he confronted the manager who then told him that I must have stole it and she never gave me permission to take it. That was to cover herself from punishment since the owner did not authorize giving the TV to me. That started as two felony charges… they were reduced to misdemeanors and I was ordered to 10 days of community service. They dropped the TV charges and got me for taking a broom and a sheet without permission. Heck I will admit to that. Since that time I have been in zero trouble with the law.

I hold a degree in Hospitality Management, I work as a reputable Magician for Norwegian Cruise Lines to this day and I speak at Universities across the Country as an advocate for Safe Sex. I would say that my legal history isn’t too bad compared to several others.

Also, for the record LA County Public Health Officials confirmed that I worked with two known HIV positive performers on set. Read the first paragraph of this report….

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/04/investigation-of-hivin-porn-industry-hurt-by-limited-cooperation-from-filmakers-reportsays.html

I NEVER saw a client while advertising as an escort while working in the industry. I saw one client in my entire past, which was several months before I entered the industry. That was only an oral service. I would say that under any lie detector test. I know for CERTAIN that I contracted HIV on a gay film set. At the time of that shoot I had two active STDS in my system that were contracted on the straight side of the industry. As you may know, when you have an active STD in your system you are 3 x more likely to get HIV when you come in contact
with it.

Enough about me. Lets talk about your past and what you currently do for work… hmm, not so great. You sure are great at kicking people when they are down. I guess you have to compensate some how for that small penis of yours.

Derrick Burts

Dear Derrick,

What comes through most clearly in this screed, is that you’ve still learned nothing about taking responsibility for your actions. There’s always an excuse, always an alibi… and you constantly minimize your wrongdoing.

Sure you robbed your own employer — someone in your hometown who was willing to hire you despite your scandalous past — but it wasn’t as bad as Whiteacre is making out…

Sure you’ve had outstanding warrants for your repeated failures to comply with the orders of courts in several counties, but it was only because you moved!

Sure, you blew a “.09 back in 2010 on St. Patties Day [and] had a bench warrant for unpaid fines in Orange County for that.”

However, that’s not all of the story, is it, Mr. Burts? On March 18, 2010, you were arrested in Orange County and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, driving without a valid driver’s license, straddling or changing lanes when unsafe, and reckless driving. On April 19th, you failed to appear in court in Westminster, CA, and a warrant was issued. You were eventually arraigned on May 6th, where you pleaded guilty to reckless driving.

Sure you had a Disturbing the Peace misdemeanor (in August 2010) — that sounds pretty innocuous, right? But in reality you was arrested and booked for domestic violence and misdemeanor-level assault.

They cut you a deal, and you pleaded to a charge of disturbing the peace in a Van Nuys courtroom on August 3. You were fined and sentenced to 52 weeks of classes (which you did not complete – resulting in a bench warrant).

But this arrest constituted a violation of your Orange County probation, and it was reported to the court in mid-August (Orange County notes case activity on August 18, 2010, and your probation was revoked on that date).

Even more interesting, however, is what happened at that “porn party in Hollywood.”

According to witnesses, Jay Rock invited you and Crystal/Kaycee to accompany him at a pool party. Although you write that, when you and Crystal/Kaycee left the party, “she was trying to drive the car home drunk and I was trying to stop her,” a party attendee (not in the adult business) informs TRPWL that you yourself were already intoxicated when you arrived. “He was drunk out of his goddamn mind,” the witness remembers.

“They got into an argument — he wanted to fuck ‘civilian’ guests at the party, and asked Jay Rock to film it. He was very aggressive about it. He also hit on Jamey Janes, while Jay had a camera. Kaycee was not okay with it.”

“He was using his girlfriend like shark bait. He’s a predator, and a total jerk. His response was, he thought he was coming to a swinger party.”

At that point, you and Crystal/Kaycee were asked to leave the party.

“Next thing we all heard was a loud bang,” a witness recalls. “Then we saw the lights, red and blue. The cops came and arrested him and towed the car.”

Derrick, in December 2010, on the issue of swinging and off-set sex, didn’t you tell the polygraph examiner whom Mark Spiegler had contracted:

Asking things like “If I ever did this or that” could refer to any point and time in my life before contracting HIV. I would like to stick to the time frame in which I may have contracted HIV which is between August and September as the widest gap. Based off the Western Blot test I contracted HIV around mid September. My last negative test was September 3rd… I tested positive on October 8th. There is a 60 day time frame for HIV to show in the body. So that would be all of August and September.

Yes, I did have sex with partners while swinging without a condom. Is it possible that I got if from swinging? No. It was outside of the time period and every girl I did swinging with was cleared on the quarantine list.

Derrick, when you outed yourself as Patient Zeta (under the auspices of AHF) a week earlier, didn’t you tell the world that you and Crystal/Kaycee were in a monogamous relationship, off camera, during the period in question?

That party was in August 2010.

 

You also write:

“The last thing was for taking an old TV from the hotel I worked at… That started as two felony charges… they were reduced to misdemeanors and I was ordered to 10 days of community service. They dropped the TV charges and got me for taking a broom and a sheet without permission. Heck I will admit to that. Since that time I have been in zero trouble with the law.”

Well, that’s not exactly true either, Derrick. As I reported last year:

Following four settlement conferences, and several continuances, on March 15, 2012 Burts took a plea deal, and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor burglary and embezzlement. He was sentenced to 10 days in custody (through a work release program), three years probation, fined $380, and ordered to pay restitution to the victim, Hampton Inn and Suites in Hemet.

On March 26, 2012 Burts paid the $380, but on April 27, a memo stating Burts had violated the terms of him probation was issued. Burts had completed 0 days of his work release program. The court determined Burts had violated his probation and a warrant was issued on May 9.

None of this was your fault, you just have bad luck, right? Spare me the hustle, Mr. Burts, I’ve heard it all before. By the way, did you ever repay David Steidell the money you took from him? He won a default judgment against you for $4,829.50. but you skipped town.

 

Back to your comment… On the subject of escorting, you write:

“I saw one client in my entire past, which was several months before I entered the industry. That was only an oral service. I would say that under any lie detector test.”

Funny you mention lie detector test, because you previously backed out of taking one when you couldn’t have the questions (which focused on your off-set activities, such as escorting, swingers’ parties, and bareback sex with men) rewritten to your liking.

At that time (December 2010) you wrote, in an email:

I had a posting for escorting during the time I got HIV, however, I did not meet with anyone from the ad. The reason I am time specific on the escort question is because back in May or June I met with a guy from Craigslist and gave a massage and a handjob on a guy… I classify that as escorting.

So, in December 2010 you said you’d only given a handjob in May or June (the month you entered the business), but here you are changing your story ONCE AGAIN.

 

You really are a con artist who’s willing to say anything. Your con is obvious: you like to boast about being willing to take a polygraph test, but — after spinning more of your lies — when push comes to shove you weasel out of it.

In a June 2011 interview, interview you said:

I had this ad on Rentboy for escorting. When I went to Florida for my first shoot, a bunch of guys told me about escorting sites. I said, “This is cool. I could try it out,” and I discussed it with my girlfriend, so I made an ad on Rentboy. This was September.”

But your own girlfriend, Crystal (a.k.a. Kaycee Brooks), seems less certain: “he said he never saw anybody from the site or anything but, I wasn’t always around him.”

Hey Derrick, remember when you told the world you had “performed in about five gay film shoots.”

LOL That was a lie, wasn’t it Derrick, meant to support the parable you and AHF concocted:

Derrick was a straight All American kid from a small town, with a pretty blonde girlfriend, whose restlessness had caused him to grown bored with the monotonous day-to-day grind of working at a hotel. Wanting to make some fast money, the couple answered an on-line ad for models, which led them to the office of a small Orange County modeling agency, where they were seduced with offers of big money in the porn business. Although they were in a committed relationship, they were both enticed to have sex with multiple partners for money.

Derrick was told he “had money written all over him” in gay porn, and after being told how much more money he could make, he went along. Within a month, Derrick began contracting STIs, and within a few more months he was HIV-positive. He must have caught it from gay sex in front of the cameras, because he and Crystal were monogamous off-camera, and she tested HIV-negative.

After his seroconversion, the porn industry turned its back on him, but the caring people at AIDS Healthcare Foundation – who only have the best interests of adult industry workers at heart – took him in and used his story to warn us all about evil, greedy, reckless porn producers.

It’s a simple parable: the porn industry gets rich while it exposes young innocents to horrible risks that were never revealed to them, and which they could neverhave anticipated.

Derrick Burts: poster boy for porn industry greed and callousness.

 

The reality, however, is you’re bisexual and began having sex with men ”a long time ago before starting porn”; you and Crystal were swingers; Crystal escorted; she had a criminal record for GrandTheft when you met; you posted escort ads offering sexual services for men; you frequented gay clubs in West Hollywood; and you shot more gay and “bi” scenes (including at least one bi scene for Dean Coxx’s website, ClubDean, with Crystal) than “straight” scenes. None of this should give you any reason to be embarrassed — why don’t you just own it?

 

“LA County Public Health Officials confirmed that I worked with two known HIV positive performers on set… I know for CERTAIN that I contracted HIV on a gay film set.”

Actually, it was the CDC that made that finding. I read their report; they did NOT state that the performers were in California, and furthermore we both know that if you worked with HIV+ performers they were gay porn models OUTSIDE OF THE AIM TESTING SYSTEM.

Remember back in December 2010, when you were interviewed by a Los Angeles Times reporter…

He said he instructed his agent that he would never work with a performer who was HIV-positive and would always use condoms during intercourse in gay productions, something he said he reiterated on set.

He said some of the larger gay porn producers required testing, and the Florida-based agent who represented him for gay porn required him to use condoms. He said condoms were readily available on set. “Getting into gay porn, I knew there was a higher risk of getting HIV. So I always made sure I used a condom,” Burts said. He said did not use condoms on straight porn shoots, but he was tested for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases monthly at AIM.

“Going into this industry, I thought I was getting tested every month, I’m safe,” he said. “It’s not guaranteed that I got it from a gay shoot. To blame it all on the gay side would be wrong. The fact is I tested positive. AIM claims testing protects you. That’s not true.”

Derrick, YOU WENT OUTSIDE THE AIM SYSTEM — how could you possibly expect it to protect you?

System — Noun. A group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole. A functionally related group of elements.

You see, Derrick, a system means its individual parts are related to and interact with each other. People who did not test at AIM or have their HIV status verifiable through AIM were not part of that system BY DEFINITION.

You used to shoot gay scenes with NO HIV/STD TEST REQUIRED after answering Craigslist ads, Derrick. In terms of your own health, that was your choice to make, but if being safe from HIV was SO important to you, why did you repeatedly perform in gay porn scenes where your partners did NOT have to show you a current test?

If working with “known HIV positive performers” was an issue for you, WHY did you not stay within the tested side of the business?

 

It’s glaringly obvious to everyone that this concern for “safe sex” is a new one for you — part of your post-infection scam. I’m sorry you had to learn the value of verifying your partners’ status the hard way, Mr. Burts, but passing the blame to others just makes you look like a tool. Accept your mistakes — as well as your lies, and crimes — and own them.

“At the time of that [gay porn] shoot I had two active STDS in my system that were contracted on the straight side of the industry.”

You tested at AIM on September 3, right before you went Florida to shoot your final gay scenes, Derrick. AIM’s testing would have picked up those STDs, and you would have been given antibiotics and told to abstain from sex. (You would have also been prevented from performing “on the straight side of the industry.”) Did you not take your antibiotics? Did you simply decide to work in Florida anyway, and expose others to your STIs?

In an June 2011 interview you stated you had gonorrhea in the throat during that shoot in Florida, as well as chlamydia, adding:

I did a shoot where I was riding [a costar] on top, like a reverse cowboy. He had the condom on and at the end pulled the condom off and did the cum shot all over my butt and near my anus. I know that semen came in contact with that area. This is just an idea of how I got it. Either that or oral, because also the oral side of gay shoots is unprotected and it’s not like normal oral. You are doing 20 or 30 minutes of hardcore gagging. The cum shot was in my mouth.

Let’s set aside for a moment that, prior to that interview, you hadn’t mentioned an oral cumshot scene…

Gonorrhea of the throat is normally contracted through fellatio, Derrick. How do you suppose you contracted it “on the straight side of the industry”?

Where and when did you REALLY get those STIs – if you had them at all? I do not believe your claim that it was “on the straight side of the industry”.

If you want to prove that I’m mistaken, then please provide your two last AIM tests from before you went to Florida, and the dates and other information regarding your last three shoots “on the straight side of the industry” in L.A., and we’ll get to the bottom of this.

 

In any case, your claim boils down to this: you unknowingly shot with two HIV+ models in Florida. That’s not an argument for condoms – it’s an argument for testing, test verification and disclosure.

You also float the possibility you contracted HIV through oral sex. But neither AHF not Cal-OSHA is demanding condoms for oral sex. Therefore, even under your own theory, THE CONDOM MANDATE YOU ARE SUPPORTING WOULD NOT HAVE PREVENTED YOUR INFECTION.

 

Here’s another question, Derrick: in Florida, on September 10 Gio Caruso shot some photos of you and model Diego Vena on the set of Suite 703’s Men Hard At Work line, before the video shoot was canceled for reasons unknown.

What happened on that shoot, Derrick?

 

You conclude your comment with:

“You sure are great at kicking people when they are down. I guess you have to compensate some how [sic] for that smal [sic] penis of yours.”

Wait — kicking you when you’re down? I thought your life was GREAT, Derrick?

You’re a “reputable Magician for Norwegian Cruise Lines” after all… You’ve taken to the high seas!

Speaking of magic shows, Derrick, why is it you always take jobs around kids? I mean, the stories about you really liking kids a lot go back to your high school years in Hemet. Two local parents, who did not know anything of your life after 2005 – including your porn career – and were surprised to hear that you’d returned to live in Hemet, mentioned an incident involving some minors at the Ramona Bowl Ampitheatre. Care to comment?

After leaving town in a hurry in 2005, you ended up with a magic act in Spokane, Washington. There you partnered up with a young local magician named “Kenneth K.” and over the next few years you worked at places like the Silverwood Theme Park in Athol, Idaho. Kids love magic shows. Then, when you returned to California after being a sea-faring magician, you took a front office job at the Marriott hotel in Anaheim . . . right next to Disneyland.

Then, of course, you took a job at a Salvation Army YOUTH CAMP (Wildwood Ranch Christian Camp in Ramona, California) from June to August of 2010, at the same time you were swinging and performing in porn. The Salvation Army is a Christian organization that opposes sex work, so what exactly was the appeal, Derrick?

Whatever you do, try not to get arrested again, buddy boy. Remember what your friends AHF joked about in those emails from August 2011: they don’t maintain a code in their financial spreadsheets for “bailing twinks out of jail.”

Cordially,

MW