Rayner wrote the following because something
sad and ridiculous showed up on some websites for awhile--a Wanted Poster!
This is the tale of a grievous miscarriage of justice is obvious, and I (Mark, the man who runs this website
for Rayner) in 2009 personally called the prosecutors in this matter. They substantially verified everything that Rayner has
written below.
As I write this in late 2010 there is a huge uproar in the world about Julian
Assuage and his WikiLeaks revelations. Sadly, his predicament reminds me of the situation in my own life. It happened in California
almost ten years ago.Except, my problem resulted from pleasure, not politics. My offense
had to do with sex education rather than diplomatic leaks. Years before, in Hawaii, I was lucky enough to learn a method to
have and give fantastically satisfying oral sex. I wanted to share this with the world. "I want people to be happy, to
experience bliss," I said then, and still say. To do this, I needed to make a movie. (Another benefit of this techniques
is that it gives great pleasure without penetration, which could help to prevent unwanted pregnancies.)
To make my movie I held an audition. A pretty young woman who claimed she was 18, and who looked 18, showed up. She
signed a model release to that effect. She auditioned successfully. I was very happy, thinking that this movie would help
many men and women to feel wonderful in the future. Quite frankly, I was also looking forward to the proceeds from the DVD
sales. I was married and had two daughters with college coming up. After the audition
everything was perfect. Except, I needed a copy of her ID along with her signed release and affirmation, plus a picture of
her holding the ID for the camera, to comply with national and state law regarding making sexually explicit films. (And, yes,
this was very explicit. It had to be. While not "porn," it did have naked people having wonderful sex, so those
laws applied.) For her to get her ID, I gave her a $100 to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get one. Her original,
she had told me, was lost. (Trusting her became the biggest mistake of my life.)She then
broke down and started to cry. It turned out that she was only 14. She said that she'd run away from home because of some
sex abuse issues with her mother's new boyfriend. I had her phone her mother, who then arranged for her to stay with a friend.
I talked to her biological father on the telephone, explained what had happened, and totally destroyed all the films I had
taken of this "18, no 14" year old girl.
A few months later eight policemen
raided my studio and house. They took my computer, cameras, personal and business records, put me in hanccuffs, and took me
away as my family cried. I was arrested for statutory rape. I told them:
I never touched her.
She signed a paper saying she was 18, and told me she
could prove it.
When I found out she wasn't, I helped her as best I could,
and destroyed all of the films in which she was present.
There was one thing that
I didn't emphasize to the police. Now that the statute of limitations has run out I can write this. There was also the fact
that the gent she'd auditioned with-her boyfriend at the time-did have proof he was over 18. And he affirmed she was
of age, too .(He believed this until she confessed to me, at which time he broke things off with her completely.) Except, technically, under California law, I was the "principal" in what happened. As such, I was
convicted of what was technically a felony and was labeled a "sex criminal." I
served five months in jail, branded for life for my "crime." You can imagine how my teen-aged daughters were feeling
about this. Then in Washington D.C. a new law was passed. In reaction to
the horrible events of 9/11, it mandated that all "foreign felons" be deported. Technically that included me, and
though I fought it, and even though the prosecution in my case affirmed it was unnecessary, I was sent away from America,
my home of 25 years. With no money, no home, and no immediate prospects back in my native England, I had to leave behind
my wife and children in California. There they had a nice house, good schools, and my wife had a small but adequate income
from our baby sling business. It seemed that the end result of the whole thing was that
I ended up divorced and without a cent in a country I hadn't called home for a quarter century. When eventually my ex-wife,
whom I still loved dearly, passed away, I could not even come to the US for her funeral. Then,
years later, as I'm getting my life back in order, the whole thing reignites. Even though I had been deported from the US
by the federal government, the local authorities in California put out a Wanted Poster for me as one of the Ten Most Wanted
in their county. Why? Because, from England, I had not reported to my probation officer in California in person.
Of course, as I waited for the plane to take me away I'd called him to explain what was happening. Years later, though,
when I called to see why this embarrassing ridiculousness was happening, a person in the probation office told me, "Oh,
your officer must have forgotten to put that in writing." And by then he was retired. "Sorry," she said.
Being
I was in America, as mentioned above I was one person who called about this Wanted Poster. On
the phone I said, "I can give you the exact location of one of your most wanted criminals-even his phone number!"
There was much excitement until I said it was Rayner, and that he was in England.
There was no response when I told them that he'd be happy to come by if they could get him
permission to enter the country. It was at this time I received confirmation of all
the pertinent details of Rayner's account as given above.
