WORLD EXCLUSIVE FROM EBNER'S KILL-FILE:
“The Hustler, the Heiress and the Soft-Porn King”, which ran in the November/December 2005 issue of Radar magazine, chronicled the unlikely showdown between Girls Gone Wild impresario Joe Francis, 31, who parlayed a privileged Beverly Hills upbringing into a $100 million empire of ersatz sleaze, and Darnell Riley, 28, a Hollywood strong-arm enforcer, rough-trade Lothario and now convicted kidnapper and burglar who would do anything to trade places with him.
The porn king (Francis), the heiress (Hilton) and the dildo dude (Darnell Riley).
The ensuing trial that was to take place in Los Angeles Superior Court in February 2006 promised to include a riotous cavalcade of hard-boiled character types – hustlers, heiresses, fight promoters, Russian bail bondsmen, press-addled lawyers and the opportunistic mother of the accused, who showed up for her interview driving a gold Cadillac Escalade, ready to demand a cash payment, for her “medicine.” It was also a tale that owed more than a little to the John Guare play Six Degrees of Separation, where a silver-tongued con man from the inner city talks his way into cloistered Old Money society, exploits its liberal deference to race and the noble savage, and feasts on its banquet of privilege and sex until someone gets hurt. When Riley negotiated a plea bargain in the amount of 10 years, 8 months, just before the trial was to get underway, it looked like the best show in town was about to fold early and the state-raised Riley would do relatively short time standing on his head.
A subsequent Hollywood, Interrupted investigation reveals that the story that got told, improbable as it was, just barely scratched the surface. The real, untold story dwarfs this initial crime in both scale and daring, and employs an even more colorful cast of characters right out of central casting. It also blows the lid off a home invasion spree and would-be criminal empire, masterminded by a two-bit charlatan and jailhouse punk, abetted by Riley as his muscle and a Playboy model as the bait, whose exploits are literally the stuff of young Hollywood legend.
***
When police raided Riley’s apartment on March 28, 2005, they discovered a VHS copy of the Joe Francis videotape (and numerous Girls Gone Wild master tapes), one of his Louis Vuitton bags (with an Oahu sticker on it from Riley’s recent trip to Hawaii), and five handguns – one belonging to restaurateur Dipu Haque, an owner of Koi, where the Hilton sisters were regulars, who reported it stolen in July 2004, although it was identified as the gun used in the Francis break-in that previous January. Police also found a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun propped behind the door. Until his recent plea bargain, Riley was prepared to testify in open court that he was having an intimate relationship with Joe Francis – a claim that Francis labels absurd.
But in retrospect, all paths seem to lead to a mysterious figure named Will Wright, who Francis identified as the voice at the other end of the two-way radio Riley held the night of the home invasion, and from whom he took his orders. (After restraining Francis’s hands behind his back, Riley removed the pink dildo and a Sony DV camera from a Nike backpack, telling his victim, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a faggot,” making the freelance video a premeditated act.) By his own imaginative admission, Wright is an academic prodigy and high school athlete once scouted by the Seattle Mariners, who at 17 managed to build a $70 million drug empire in the Pacific Northwest, before serving nine years in prison. Until very recently, his phenomenal story was to be the subject of an untitled feature film, to be written and directed by Joe Carnahan (Narc, Blood Guts Bullets and Octane). A source close to that derailed production tells Hollywood, Interrupted that Will Wright is “one of the most dubious characters” he has ever encountered.
Wild Will Wright charms his way
into another checkbook
And according to numerous sources, Wright is a pathological liar who forged documents to prove his storied exploits, extorted money from a series of girlfriends into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and routinely stalked celebrities. He was regrettably introduced to young A-list Hollywood – people like Paris Hilton and Brandon Davis, currently dating The OC star Mischa Barton – by ex-girlfriend Kristen Williams, a gorgeous model and aspiring actress. She claims Wright convinced her to sell the $250,000 engagement ring given to her by a former fiancé and convicted drug dealer for $90,000, which he claimed to be investing for her in a series of ventures, all confirmed by financial documents. In reality, Wright, says Williams, was fabricating the documents in Photoshop and using the money to charter private jets and buy bottles of Kristal champagne, expensive gifts and hookers for the celebrities and wealthy elite he sought to emulate. “He was very charming and knew the right things to say,” she says today as part of a public apology. Upon learning that she was taking her story to the media, Wright’s last communication with her was a threatening text message on the eve of my interview with her: “Darnell will be unhappy,” it read in part.
With the money all gone, Wright allegedly moved on to a series of women and wealthy couples he would in turn freeload off of and seduce into his nefarious financial schemes. One couple claims to have lost more than $400,000 in specious investments when actor Mickey Rourke vouched for Wright as a trustworthy friend.
Model/Actress/Victim:
Kristen Williams
In reality, Wright’s parents were both lower middle-class teachers at Blaine High School in Seattle. A below average student with a wandering eye, he was arrested in his senior year for selling 5.5 pounds of marijuana to undercover officers, and was sentenced to six years in federal prison in exchange for ratting on higher-ups in the operation. At his sentencing, wrestling coach Randy Deming was the only character witness to speak. Deming is a controversial figure who later appeared on the cover of the Seattle Times as the subject of an article titled “Coaches Who Prey,” and was later dismissed for numerous incidents involving sexual impropriety, groping pre-adolescent women, and in one case, charged with first-degree molestation of a 10-year-old girl. A source who claims via e-mail that he knew Wright in Taft Prison in California, cellblock C1 (where Tommy Chong served nine months for the sale of drug paraphernalia) claims he frequently turned tricks while in custody.
A poor reflection of has-been
model-turned-suspected criminal,
Erin Naas.
In addition to his alleged confidence schemes, Wright also reportedly masterminded a lucrative robbery crew that included Riley, Playboy and lingerie model Erin Naas, and others. Wright, sources say, served as the “connector,” a facilitator who would spend time with the robbery victim away from their home, while his team would break in and rob them. Model Erin Naas, it’s alleged by Joe Francis and other sources, would often lure targets away from their homes as well, or else gain access to residences and memorize their security codes. (Coincidentally, Naas was also questioned by police in the earlier, unsolved Bel-Air Burglar series of home invasions.) Wright reportedly had an affair with Johnson & Johnson billion-heiress Casey Johnson (whose Friendster.com profile lists her interests as “sex, pole dancing, licking lollipops and making fun of desperate debbies”), then allegedly organized the robbery of her home while she was vacationing in Mexico.
Wright also reportedly burglarized his friend, young businessman Richard Jardine. Jardine, CEO of Clear Media, is Wright’s former best friend, and has reported on record to the Los Angeles Police Department, “I was with Will when I got robbed and he actually sold my stolen paintings back to me!” A disgruntled consortium of Wright victims later launched a web site called www.whoiswillwright.com that posts legal documents pertaining to his Washington court case and comments from victims of Wright’s numerous instances of fraud.
Parrish Medley, a young, handsome venture capitalist, reports a similar MO, returning home from a night out with Wright to discover he had been burglarized. Medley claims that Wright took him out drinking until the wee hours. When he returned home and discovered that his domicile was trashed and art, cash and other valuables were stolen, Will Wright was suspiciously there to greet him. Likening Wright to a pathological junkie who steals your dope and then helps you look for it, Medley says that Wright offered to stay with him, but couldn’t risk being there when the cops arrived because he was on probation.
Will Wright and a floozy hitch a ride on some dupe's private jet
Feral socialite Paris Hilton and her sister Nicky reported the same experience.
According to his testimony in the preliminary hearing for the Darnell Riley trial, Paris Hilton confided to Joe Francis that Riley had been blackmailing her for $20,000 a month after coming into possession of long-rumored videotapes of her in numerous sexual situations and uttering a racial epithet behind the backs of two black teenagers in a nightclub. (Francis and our Russian bounty hunter who have seen the tapes, claims they would ruin her career.) Francis also claims that Hilton told him Wright had become extremely emotional on the drug Ecstasy and confessed to having engineered both the burglary of her home and that of Francis. He also said that Erin Naas had given him the access codes to Francis’s home, after she briefly dated Francis in 2003. (When Francis surprised Riley in his home, Riley exclaimed, “You’re home early.” Francis had been out at a nightclub with another victim, actor/billion-heir Brandon Davis, who sources claim to have seen making out with Wright when both were “wasted.”) Hilton, who most recently couldn’t stay engaged to shipping magnate Paris Latsis (“Hey, that’s my name too!”) long enough to justify her lavish, gratuitous cover spread in Vanity Fair, remains a conduit between many if not all the parties in this sordid morality fable, having had affairs with Francis, possibly Riley and much of the Greater Los Angeles phone book. Her purloined T-Mobile Sidekick, with its now-public phone list, continues to provide the most concise program of the players, including Will Wright.
If you received this Warhol painting
without paperwork, it's probably stolen.
In the case of Parrish Medley, Wright and Riley reportedly showed up at the Hamilton-Selway Fine Art Gallery in Beverly Hills with an original Warhol painting taken during the burglary of his home. Wright claimed he had a buyer in Florida and needed to authenticate the painting. Dealer Ron Valdez was familiar with the painting and could easily vouch for its authenticity, but insisted they provide pro forma legal documents verifying chain of title. When they refused, he refused to provide them with the certificate, and Wright reportedly threatened him, reminding the art dealer that “[Darnell Riley] had killed people.” Valdez reported all of this to Hollywood, Interrupted, and the purloined painting is now in Florida with the unwitting new owner of stolen art. The art crimes unit of the LAPD is actively investigating this under the supervision of a Detective Lazarus with, naturally, Will Wright as their number one suspect.
The Riley/Wright/Naas enterprise was not restricted to non-confrontational actions. Club promoter Tommy Elastra, who books events at high-end nightclubs Shelter and Concorde, both hangouts to the hip moneyed crowd, has reported to authorities that the crew cornered him in the Hollywood equivalent of a dark alley. In what is beginning to seem like an MO, Riley allegedly held a gun on him and forced him to take down his pants, while Naas Tasered and then robbed him, while Wright clung to the shadows. Elastra later filed a police report against Naas, who he recognized, and “a small light-skinned black man.” For a nominal fee, Riley’s attorney Ron Richards later persuaded Elastra to drop charges against her, effectively making Darnell Riley, the “gun” in this robbery, simultaneously disappear. Richards is quite proud of that fancy lawyering, and not surprisingly, Wright is reportedly footing all of Riley’s legal bills, with Riley’s incentive not to roll over being that he would then be implicated in any crimes Wright may still be charged with if an ongoing LAPD investigation pans out. Criminal defense lawyer Richards has admitted he took the Riley case to curry favor with powerful figures in the Hollywood community who had engaged Riley’s services and wanted to see him get a fair shake. And to keep things interesting, Will Wright ironically went before the camera alongside his former girlfriend Kristen Williams in director Nick Cassavettes’ “Alpha Dog” – a movie based on the life of Jesse James Hollywood, a drug dealer who became one of the youngest men ever to be on the FBI's most wanted list. Fittingly, Wright’s motion picture debut performance was cut from the movie.
Will Wright gets an ear-full from a woman who claims
he duped her and her husband for $400k. Hired gun Darnell Riley looks on.
More than a simple kidnapping and extortion beef, this case exposes the inevitable collision between the pampered, privileged socialite set and those denizens of the lower depths, inured by street justice and possessed of a class-driven predatory zeal, that occurs when each wants what the other has, and is willing to go to any lengths to get it. As such, all of the contradictions of wealth, class, race, sex, gender, social control and its underlying rage will come to a simmer and violent boil as the details of this sordid tale are slowly exposed. The State against Darnell Riley trial that went south may have been the initial catalyst, but from every indication, that only scratched the surface.
Robbery-Homicide Detective Steve Koman of the LAPD reports that there is still an active investigation into the alleged crimes of Will Wright, but an arrest cannot be made unless his victims agree to come forward to the extent that they would testify against him in court.
Will Wright toasts his future as
Hollywood Crime Wave Suspect #1
Until that day, Hollywood, Interrupted will be following this story as the violent by-product of generational in-breeding, Social Darwinism and the vestigial inertia of two thousand years of Western Civilization; the greed, hypocrisy and vulgarity at the nexus of money, youth and fame.
Author’s note:
Will Wright has been given ample opportunity to answer all the allegations leveled at him in this story. In fact, he had the nerve to show up unannounced in his attorney Ronald Richards’ office on the day we were taping a segment with Richards for VH1. My producer Brian Meere and I realized Wrights presence as a set up of sorts because he kept asking us about our sources. Things got confrontational when I told Richards that his client Wright could either go on camera, or leave. We weren’t there to get grilled about our sources by a possible perpetrator of the crimes we were covering. It was then that Will Wright mad-dogged me, and called me “a punk-ass bitch.” I just smiled, knowing that we had this rat in a corner, and all he could do was lash out. My producer, Brian, then cordially invited him to be interviewed, and Wright responded, “Nah, I’m not a TV guy.” Then he claimed that he couldn’t be interviewed because it would break the conditions of his federal probation. Bullshit. I’ve interviewed plenty of people on probation, and so had Brian. Wright was simply throwing up a smoke screen, and his lawyer was actually backing him up. Predictably, within a week, Wright granted an interview request from NBC Dateline. Hollywood, Interrupted has learned that he went on camera to deny all the allegations against him. He also claimed, on camera, that LAPD Robbery-Homicide detective Steve Koman had “backed up his alibi” for the night of the Joe Francis home-invasion. Koman adamantly denies saying any such thing. In fact, he has said, for the record, that Wright is still part of an ongoing investigation. And, Detective Lazarus of the art crimes division is looking into Wright as well. Finally, the many sources for this story have all spoken on the record, and everything in the story is backed up by tapes, transcripts notes and affidavits.
Posted by Mark Ebner at 6:00 AM
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