Miami-based lawyer Jeff Herman is the nation's leading attorney when it comes to handling high-profile sexual abuse lawsuits. He's taken on the archdioceses of both Miami and Denver, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash, and now X-Men director Bryan Singer.
Just two days after winning a $5.25 million verdict for a victim of sexual abuse at the Downtown Miami Charter School last Tuesday, he announced a suit against Singer.
Herman is representing the alleged victim, Michael Egan, a now-31-year-old Hawaiian man and former aspiring actor. He alleges that when he was between the ages of 15 and 17, he was repeatedly drugged and raped by Singer and others as part of a Hollywood pedophile ring.
Egan says other victims will come forward. Three more lawsuits will be filed next week.
"Hollywood's got a problem," Jeff Herman said, according to Buzzfeed. "Since filing this lawsuit yesterday, I've heard from many people who allege that as children in Hollywood, they've been abused.
"Obviously, there's other alleged perpetrators. They will be named. The ones who committed abuses in Hawaii will be named next week in lawsuits."
Singer's credits include numerous entries in the X-Men franchise, The Usual Suspects, and Superman Returns. The director is openly gay, and his predilections for younger men is well known in Hollywood or -- as Defamer points out -- to anyone who has ever spent more than five minutes on a gay gossip message board. However, he'd never been accused of sexual abuse before.
Herman, meanwhile, has become one of the nation's leading lawyers handling sexual abuse cases. His victory against Downtown Miami Charter School came after a 7-year-old student was forced to perform sexual acts on older students in a bathroom. He represented several men who claimed they had been abused by Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash, including one victim form Miami.
Herman rose to notoriety for representing victims of several Miami-Dade religious leaders accused of sexual assault, including Don Walk, the former Miami Dolphins team chaplain; priest Anthony Mercieca, who had previously been accused of molesting former Rep. Mark Foley when he was a boy; and Rev. Alvaro Guichard. His Miami-based law firm, Herman Law, now specializes exclusively in sexual abuse suits.
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