Cobra Killer (22 page)

Part of the respect he is insistent on offering his models, he says, is making videos that feature no bareback scenes. “I consented to doing bareback (with Cobra)…because I was falsely led to believe I was being ‘protected’ by the producer and the boys he was pairing me with. Fortunately, I got out of that alive and HIV-negative.” He added, “I chose against doing bareback and chose to save myself from a fate so many young people are falling victim to even today.”
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But gaining respect has been difficult, and comes and goes it seems. Criticism of his stint as an underage gay performer still popped up during the 2009 Gay Video News Awards.
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Despite the struggle, Lockhart says finding work and being taken seriously as an actor in or out of the porn industry is not a major concern. He declared, “I’m a porn star, and my life is deeply rooted in that.”
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Proof of that was his cover-image emblazoned on the 2006 Falcon Video release,
The Velvet Mafia,
with Lockhart appearing as “Fox Ryder”(rather than Brent Corrigan), described as “a striking youth from a broken home who was raised on an Iowa milk farm” who gets discovered by a gay porn producers.
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Not to be outdone, at the same time Kocis’ Cobra Video relaunched
Take It Like a Bitch Boy,
a video he had released previously under a less vulgar title, apparently as a reminder to the industry that Lockhart and his alter ego, Brent Corrigan, were still officially a part of the Cobra Video stable.

This was followed a series of other Lockhart films Kocis rushed to market earlier in 2006. Kocis’ titles included
Cream B-Boys, Naughty Boy’s Toys,
and the troubling
Brent Corrigan: Fuck Me Raw
, a video by its very title meant to demean Lockhart.

New struggles emerge with LSG Media

Lockhart acknowledged the setbacks created by the Cobra suit and the struggle for control of his new effort under LSG Media, a limited liability corporation formed by Lockhart, Roy, and a third partner who held a fifty-one percent interest.

In June 2007, Lockhart wrote on his blog that he had been prevented from releasing DVDs featuring his image while the Cobra legal fight went forward. “One of the elements to the settlement was that we were not permitted to release DVDs during settlement mode or until the settlement agreement was completed,” Lockhart explained. But Lockhart assured fans “I’m around, I’m kicking (hard) and I still have not given up. When I called myself determined, I meant it. I’m built for hard work and I intend to use that to my advantage.”
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His determination to move on away from Kocis and Cobra Video, a move he thought he was negotiating with the settlement talks with Kocis in the weeks before Kocis’ murder, did not mean an end to struggles.     

Originally set up to support Real Boys Online, Lockhart said LSG Media had planned to specialize in amateur scenes available only online. “I think the priority (was) to get to the meat of what you’re doing, good adult scenes, before you get artistic. When it’s all said and done, it’s all porn and that’s what you’re watching…there will be a good mix of twinks and young muscle jocks, anything attractive under the age of twenty-five.”
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What was envisioned and what came to be soon were separate ideas. The newly formed LSG Media became a new source of stress and irritation to Lockhart. “Just to keep the record straight, I have not yet been paid one cent for my work here on the blog, the scenes I have filmed that you enjoy in the Member’s Site, or any of the promo work I have done for this website and this company,” he wrote on the new www.brentcorriganonline.com blog on June 22, 2007. He acknowledged his only payment so far were sporadic donations given to him by fans.

It seemed history was repeating itself. Lockhart’s struggle to be paid and have control of his work was back again, in his view, this time in the form of LSG Media. “After a year and a half…this is how the star of the site is repaid for all his hard work! Paid nada, nothing, zilch, zippo!” Lockhart said.
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Lockhart took the dramatic step of recommending that his fans not purchase memberships on the site and promised that BrentCorriganOnline and related blogs and member sites would go dark soon as memberships and traffic began to evaporate. “After all, what use is Brent Corrigan Online when Brent Corrigan has left the building?” Lockhart asked.
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In the months that followed, the site did in fact dwindle and Lockhart’s absence was noted by at least one blogger, industry journalist J.C. Adams. He referred to Lockhart as “laying low” since the murder of Kocis, a description Lockhart took exception to. “I’d just love to see how effective and productive (Adams) would be while weathering a storm like the one I’ve experienced in the last year,” Lockhart wrote on his blog at the end of November 2007, taking umbrage at Adams’ assessment of the situation.
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Earlier in July 2007, however, he had launched a new website and blog known as www.brentcorriganinc.com, a slight variation on the name of the one launched earlier by LSG Media. “Here, you’ll get it all. Just be advised, from here on out, you have absolutely no reason to continue your regular visits (to the old site),” he told his fans. “I wash my hands of that filthy failure, and I beg the same of you.”
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The slow months of 2007 did provide Lockhart with two non-porn acting opportunities, including a small part in the independent film
Tell Me
and a part in an unaired TV pilot
Didn’t This Used To Be Fun?
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As 2007 came to an end, Lockhart used his blog to take issue with large stories published first by
Rolling Stone
writer Peter Wilkinson in September 2007, followed the next month by another take in
Out
magazine by writer Michael Joseph Gross.

Lockhart noted alleged errors or omissions in both articles, and accused particularly Wilkinson of having “an individual agenda” in his story, noting that “I should not have ignored Wilkinson’s tinge of disdain that lightly emanated from him upon our first meeting. I really got a clear dose of journalism and what it really means when
Rolling Stone
and
Out
took their chance to tell their idea of what has ensued in (and around) my life,” Lockhart said. “There is no justice in journalism.”
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Approaching a settlement

Months of fighting were coming to an end late in 2006 as Lockhart and Kocis began seriously considering a settlement. For Kocis, his patience and his wallet were growing weary of expensive legal bills from California lawyers, all with no known resolution in sight. Depositions from both sides were taken in the contentious lawsuit in September 2006, giving everyone a chance to have his say.

A month later, after reading the transcripts of depositions given by Lockhart and Roy, Kocis approached his friend Samuel Hall, a Milwaukee-based entertainment lawyer who had befriended Kocis earlier in 2005. Apparently Kocis appreciated the demeanor of the depositions from Roy. “They expected (Roy’s deposition) to be very hostile,” Lockhart said. “He wasn’t. So that really paved the way. Bryan took the first step and Grant returned the call (and)…the proceedings started happening.”
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Hall was never officially an “attorney of record” for Kocis, the two had enjoyed a platonic friendship that included trips to Florida, Costa Rica, and Las Vegas.

“He had contacted me for advice and to bounce things off of,” Hall said. “I was never formally retained as his lawyer, more so (I) became friends with him, (I) was somebody he could bounce questions with (about) the legal system.”
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Hall said Kocis eventually was calling him by phone almost daily in 2005 and 2006 as the legal battle with Lockhart and Roy grew uglier.

But time has a way of changing things.

“It became clear that Bryan really wanted to settle the case by around November of 2006,” Hall said, and that he had begun to focus on other things. “You know, up until that time, probably consistent with other lawsuits, it just consumed his life,” Hall said. “It was something that he talked about, was concerned about every single day. By the time November of 2006 came, he became more interested in moving on with his life.”
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Getting on with his life, though, meant Kocis would have to go face-to-face with Lockhart and Roy after a lot of angry, hurtful words and accusations had been exchanged between the trio. Regardless, Kocis green lighted the idea of having Hall approach Roy to have an open conversation about what could be done to resolve the case that would make both sides happy, Hall said.
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Hall described his role as trying to help all sides identify “how you can make money going into the future.”
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Hall’s efforts resulted in a draft Memorandum of Understanding written in the waning days of 2006 and the first few days of 2007. It was the MOU that served as the summons for all parties to meet at Hall’s Las Vegas Boulevard condominium to start more detailed negotiations.
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Kocis showed up at Hall’s Las Vegas home with an expensive gift for his friend, a Rolex watch. He remained nervous, though, that Lockhart and Roy may decide to back out of talking about a settlement.

On January 11, 2007, Kocis and Hall had a long dinner meeting, one in which Hall could see Bryan was ready to move on. “Bryan would talk about this lawsuit every day, and I said, ‘You know, I can’t talk about this every day. I need to talk about other things.’”
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The next day, Hall accompanied his friend/client to the Bellagio Hotel. There they met only with Roy. Lockhart did not show with Roy explaining that Lockhart’s “personal feelings with respect to Bryan” made him reluctant to show.

A settlement this close in hand, Hall again stepped up and suggested Kocis return to the condo, while Hall talked to Roy alone. “We all came to the conclusion that if the case was going to be resolved, Sean (Lockhart) was an integral part of it and he needed to be there and he needed to take part in this meeting,” Hall said.
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Soon Roy was convinced of Hall’s good intentions and talked Lockhart into joining him at the condo for a long-dreaded but absolutely necessary face-to-face meeting with Kocis.

Around Hall’s kitchen table that Friday afternoon, the group reviewed the proposed settlement. “Initially, everybody was a little tense,” Hall understated. “There was a lot of distrust between these guys.” The desire for a settlement, however, seemed to override that distrust. It also drove the meeting along into a four hour affair, ending around 8:00 P.M.
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Lockhart agreed to participate because he had become convinced that Kocis “had no intentions of preventing me from moving forward outside of what he wanted to do together. We agreed that he had a certain amount of fair stake in what I was doing because of my popular start at Cobra Video.”
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Progress had been made, Hall said, “but we realized we weren’t at a meeting of the minds and frankly, you know, we weren’t close but we were making good progress. So we decided to go to dinner.”
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The group went first to the Wynn Casino for dinner, a trendy Las Vegas nightclub in what now is the location of the Planet Hollywood Casino for drinks.

Seated in a “VIP booth” at the club, Hall described the meeting as friendly and optimistic. While no agreement was yet reached, Kocis and Roy had already started talking about possible projects they could do together, “and how their businesses could co-exist, work together (and) possibly even collaborate in the future,” Hall said.
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The following day, the group met again at Hall’s condo starting at noon. “It was a long day, it took seven or eight hours,” Hall said. “Most of the concessions were made by Bryan during that meeting.”
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Hall said Kocis wanted distribution rights to any videos LSG would make for market—a concession Lockhart and Roy were unwilling to make. Kocis eventually relented on that request after several hours of talking, “and everything (else) fell into place,” Hall said.
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By Saturday evening, a final agreement was in place, another Kocis concession paving the way. Kocis had earlier insisted on creation of a new LLC to handle distribution of not only Cobra Video products featuring Lockhart, but also LSG videos with Lockhart. Hall said Kocis eventually relented by receiving other considerations, such as payment for the licensing fee for the trademark of the Brent Corrigan name.

The only remaining item was a planned visit by Kocis to LSG in San Diego to view what videos Lockhart and Roy had produced themselves and to determine how those could be distributed going forward.

The agreement finally in place, Hall reported all parties were ecstatic. “Sean gave Bryan a hug, which, you know, shocked me because I saw it the day before,” Hall said. “There was so much distrust, and I think everybody was just really happy that the thing was done and (were) optimistic.”
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The optimism even spread to Lockhart and Roy suggesting good places to have lunch when Kocis came to their hometown of San Diego to see the videos. As Hall said, “It was neat to see, because Grant was, you know, talking to Bryan, things within the industry, not necessarily looking for advice, but bouncing ideas off. Bryan was doing the same thing.”
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Kocis’ excitement was palatable. After discussions ended and the group broke up, Kocis coveted a large and expensive $25,000 Rolex watch at a shop inside the Bellagio Casino and Hotel. Kocis was in a mood to buy it as a gift to himself. Hall and Kocis’ friend Robert Wagner, who had flown out from New York, prevailed on him to wait and not buy the watch on an impulse. Wagner described the aftermath of the settlement discussions this way: “It was very amicable…The weight of the world had just been lifted from Sean, Grant and Bryan’s shoulders.”
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