Los Angeles casting director has been convicted of violating the Talent Scam Prevention Act.
According to Deadline, casting director Lindsay Chag has been convicted of aiding and abetting a casting workshop in charging for an audition or job opportunity, which is a misdemeanor violation of California’s Talent Scam Prevention Act.
Chag’s cast was the first to go to trial following several indictments last year against 28 defendants, including 5 acting workshops and 18 casting directors.
Deadline reports Chag has more than 200 credits as a casting director and operated a workshop at the Actors Alley in May 2016 that was attended by an undercover sting operation working for the LA City Attorney’s office as a part of the investigation into talent scams.
During the trial, the undercover operative, actor James Runcorn, appeared as a witness, and his secretly recorded meeting with Chat was played for the jury.
From Deadline (emphasis my own):
The workshop was billed as an educational opportunity, not an audition, but Runcorn testified that he’d brought his résumé to the workshop and left it with Chag. Prosecutor Mark Lambert, a deputy city attorney who helped draft the Talent Scam Prevention Act, asked jurors to consider what kind of a teacher accepts actors’ résumés after they paid $35 to attend her class. The videotape showed Runcorn performing a two-minute scene and then having a four-minute one-on-one meeting with her. At the end of their meeting, she told him to send her an email to let her know if he’s doing a play that she could come see.
In the end, the jury decided the evidence showed that the workshop was being conducted as an audition, and not just as a learning experience.
Related:
- Three Casting Associates Plead Guilty After “Pay-To-Play Auditions Crackdown”
- Casting Directors Face Class-Action Lawsuits After Pay-to-Play Audition Scandal
- Major Casting Director Bashes “Pay-to-Play” Actor Workshops
“Even though I respect the jury’s verdict, I couldn’t disagree with it more strenuously,” Defense Attorney Shepard Kopp told Deadline. “In my opinion, this was a ginned-up prosecution where they sent an undercover informant to the workshop who had no intention of learning anything. It just doesn’t seem fair. I’m astounded that they convicted my client. The way this investigation was conducted was dirty.”
Chag was sentenced to 36 months’ probation. During that time she cannot own, operate or work for a talent training service, however, she can still work as a casting director. She was also sentenced to 100 hours of community services and ordered to pay $350 in fines and restitution.
Meanwhile, Actors Alley, has gone out of business. The business was owned by Bradley Schs, and was among the first of several casting directors to plead no contest and sentenced to probation and community service.
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