By Canadian Press

20 new sexual assault counts for adult film actor Ron Jeremy

Aug 31, 2020 | 12:51 PM

LOS ANGELES — Adult film star Ron Jeremy was charged Monday with 20 new counts of rape or sexual assault involving 12 women and a teenage girl, authorities said.

The charges come two months after the 67-year-old Jeremy was charged with the rape of three women and the sexual assault of a fourth.

Jeremy, whose legal name is Ronald Jeremy Hyatt, has been held in jail on $6.6 million bail since June and was scheduled to appear in court to be arraigned later Monday, the district attorney’s office said.

The new counts span 16 years, from 2004 to January of this year, when he is alleged to have sexually assaulted a 21-year-old girl outside a business in Hollywood.

The charges include five counts of forcible rape and six counts of sexual battery by restraint. They also include an allegation that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl at a party in 2004.

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Jeremy pleaded not guilty to the previous charges, and his attorney Stuart Goldfarb said he was “absolutely innocent.” Goldfarb did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment on the new counts.

Investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department put out a call for more possible victims to come forward when the initial charges were filed in June.

The combined counts could bring sentences of more than 250 years in prison.

Jeremy, nicknamed “The Hedgehog,” has been among the best known and most prolific performers in the adult film industry since the 1970s.

He was investigated and charged by a district attorney’s task force formed to take on sexual misconduct in the entertainment industry as the #MeToo era gained momentum in late 2017.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton.

Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press