An Aquinnah woman has filed a federal lawsuit claiming every room inside the home she owns at 7 Skye Lane was used to film more than 30 “gay porn” films over a 7-month period.
The suit, filed Monday in federal court by Leah Bassett, alleges that her house was rented by Joshua Spafford and then used by Mile High Distribution to produce the sexually explicit pornography. The home was rented from Oct. 4, 2014 to May 15, 2015. At one point Monica Jensen, who is also named in the suit and goes by the porn name Nica Noelle, sublet the house from Spafford without the homeowner’s blessing, according to court documents.
Bassett, a 43-year-old professional artist, alleges breach of contract, trespass and copyright infringement, including the depiction of her own artwork in the porn films, and violation of the RICO Act, among other claims in the 24-page complaint. There is no set amount for the lawsuit, but Bassett seeks compensation for the use of her home for commercial use, as well as punitive damages for what was done to her home and her psyche. Bassett alleges in the complaint that she’s had to seek therapy as the result of what went on inside her home.
“…While she has had the financial need for the rental income that she could have been earning during her periodic absences, she has been emotionally unable to rent out her personal residence long-term to strangers again, no matter how well-vetted seemingly,” the complaint states.
Based on fees paid for shooting locations, Bassett’s complaint alleges that she is owed at least $305,000.
In a statement to The Times, attorney John Taylor, who represents Bassett, expressed the difficulty Bassett had pursuing a lawsuit.
“My client is a very private individual who was/is very unhappy about the perceived need to ‘go public’ with her legal grievances against these unscrupulous purveyors of porn,” Taylor wrote. “She is a strong supporter of artistic expression and the associated First Amendment protections afforded to artists and all other citizens/residents of the U.S.”
Taylor wrote that Mile High has a history of “predatory practices” in its past. “The added fact that Mile High chose to relocate their porn production activities from California to a state that was ground zero for the sexual misconduct charges brought against priests in the Catholic church in past decades, as well as the location for the sensationalist and gruesome pederast-based murder of Jeffrey Curley in 1997 simply adds to the emotionally disturbing and objectionable nature of some of the predatory-themed ‘fantasy’ porn films that were produced in secrecy on Ms. Bassett’s and property owner’s premises,” he wrote. He called the decision to use some of Bassett’s artwork in the films “especially galling.”
The complaint goes into graphic detail about what went on inside the Aquinnah home.
It even details an attempt by a disgruntled employee to “blow the whistle” on the use of the home for porn by contacting an unnamed reporter/editor at The Times. The Times did investigate, but never published a story about the allegations.
Among the claims made in the lawsuit is that the use of the home for commercial purposes violates Aquinnah zoning bylaws.
Aquinnah police were called to investigate an “unlawful break” into Bassett’s padlocked bedroom closet, according to court documents. Bassett had sent her parents to investigate and they reported they were “shocked by the deplorable state of condition” the house was in.
Bassett alleges that when she returned to the Vineyard in May of 2015, she “discovered that physical damages to her personal residence were considerably more extensive than her parents had realized and/or reported,” according to court documents.
It was Bassett who “made the highly disturbing discovery that her personal residence had been used during the leasehold for commercial production of graphic pornography,” according to court documents. Through “profound anger, embarrassment, and general sense of personal violation,” she discovered the extent of how her home was used for the pornography.
Some of the actors in the films “boasted and advertised about their porn shoots on chic and tony Martha’s Vineyard,” the complaint states. Her linens, bedspreads and even some decorative pillows were used and soiled in the scenes, documents indicate.
The three-bedroom, single-family home is valued at $687,000, according to Aquinnah assessors’ records.
Along with Jensen, Spafford and Mile High Media, Jon Blitt, April Carter, TLA Entertainment Group, TLA Gay, Gamma Entertainment, and Chargepay B.V. are all named in the suit as defendants.
