Cobra Killer by Peter A. Conway, Andrew E. Stoner Read Free Book Online Page B

siren.” (17) Describing himself as “young, supremely naïve and misguided by those who were once close to me,” he says that at age sixteen during the summer of 2003 he began an Internet chat with Bryan Kocis with the “help” of his then-twenty-one-year-old boyfriend. (18)
    Lockhart said the summer before the start of his junior year in high school was one of newfound freedom. His boyfriend represented “the first relationship ever in which a person outside my family held precedent in my life.” (19) Lockhart said a live webcam was used to send pictures of Lockhart in the nude to Kocis, which served to entice him to approach Lockhart for a video shoot. Kocis was instantly interested, Lockhart said, and began an extended online chat and other contact with the then-sixteen-year-old boy. “Bryan’s pursuit was on as he began to recruit me with subtlety,” Lockhart said. “He gained my trust and sparked my curiosity by showering me with compliments, giving me the kind of undivided attention of which the likes I had never seen before.” (20)
    Kocis learned Lockhart’s “hopes and dreams” and “presented the ways in which I could achieve these things by joining him at Cobra Video,” Lockhart said. (21) Lockhart admitted he participated in an initial effort to mislead Kocis about his real age, allowing Kocis to believe that he would turn eighteen in October 2003 (rather than his actual seventeenth birthday). Lockhart attributes pressure from both his boyfriend and Kocis for deciding to go ahead with the deception.
    Believing a lie about his actual age was “no big deal” and that “nobody would get in trouble and that it was common that boys worked underage in the industry,” Lockhart went forward with sending tapes and participating in private webcam shows in order for Kocis to “audition him” via the Internet. (22) “Bryan was intent on remaining in contact with me,” Lockhart said. “This became an almost daily event from the first time we were introduced, until the day I gave him official notification of my true age (in the autumn of 2005).” (23)

    The underage issue surfaces
    At the same time Lockhart was creating a new cross-country connection with Kocis, forty-year-old Grant Roy had begun plans for how Lockhart could cash in on his good looks and strong sex appeal to gay men. Roy’s plan was for Lockhart to not only star in gay adult videos but to produce and own them. “That way, when you’re old and gray, if we do it right, this thing’s still gonna be paying,’” Roy recalls telling Lockhart. (24)
    While Roy’s plans for Lockhart’s career were in their infancy, Bryan Kocis was moving full steam ahead. In February 2004, Lockhart says Kocis paid to fly him to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to tape scenes for a new video, Every Poolboy’s Dream.
    Lockhart describes the weekend as a flurry of activity with sex scenes filmed at a local gay resort, followed by external still photo shoots on the beach with the cast of the video for the DVD box covers.
    “At the end of the weekend and upon completion of all production, Bryan gathered up all the models to present their IDs and have everyone sign contracts and model releases,” Lockhart said, noting this reflected Kocis’ standard practice of “shoot now, ask questions later.” (25)
    Lockhart said while Kocis personally inspected the IDs of each of the other actors used in the films, he assured Lockhart to “not worry about it” and that he had already reviewed his documents via an e-mail attachment. That e-mail attachment, a PDF, contained false information added to a Washington state driver’s license and an altered Idaho birth certificate using Adobe Photoshop. (26)
    Veteran gay porn director Kevin Clarke notes, “No reputable person would ever shoot anyone on the basis of an e-mailed picture of an ID. Ever. Those of us that shot in the eighteen to twenty-three year old age group were especially careful. We always went the extra