Teofil Brank (better known as Sean Cody's Jarec Wentworth), serving 70 months in prison for blackmailing and extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from a high-profile Republican donor, has been released from lock-up early.
The donor, Donald Burns, has made donations to the campaigns of Mitt Romney, Scott Brown, Jeb Bush, and Rudy Giuliani, The Smoking Gun reported. The men met in 2013 when Burns began expressing interest in investing in the gay adult film industry. According to court documents the two entered into a sexual relationship where Burns would pay Brank for sex and in time Burns would enlist Brank to recruit other young men willing to have sex with him for money. For every man that Brank brought back to Burns, he received a commission of about $2,000.
Two years into their arrangement, things turned sour and Brank seized the opportunity to use his intimate knowledge about Burns's sex life to his advantage. Threatening to tell people that Burns was gay and paying for sex, Brank demanded that he be paid $500,000 in cash and be given Burns's Audi sports car valued at over $100,000. Burns was quick to agree to Brank's demands in hopes of ending their interaction and maintaining his reputation. Brank, however, wanted more. He demanded that Burns give him access to a downtown Los Angeles apartment as well as $1 million in cash. Burns, once again, agreed, but also turned to the FBI for help.
After coordinating with FBI agents Burns set up a sting operation at a local Starbucks coffee shop where Brank was eventually arrested. Upon searching Brank's car, police found a loaded magnum revolver.
As the case has progressed Brank's legal team made a concerted effort to have Burns's identity officially attached to the case, citing that his identity is a matter of public interest given the fact that he made interstate transactions to buy sex. Brank's attorneys have also strongly alluded to the possibility that some of the men he brought to Burns may have been underage — an assertion Burns's legal team firmly denies.
Adult industry website Str8up (wk-unfriendly) confirmed that Wentworth has been released early and transferred to an RRM (residential reentry management) location in Long Beach, California, where he'll spend his final five months of incarceration. Description of the RRM/RRC (which is essentially a halfway house): “The Bureau of Prisons contracts with residential reentry centers (RRCs), also known as halfway houses, to provide assistance to inmates who are nearing release. RRCs provide a safe, structured, supervised environment, as well as employment counseling, job placement, financial management assistance, and other programs and services. RRCs help inmates gradually rebuild their ties to the community and facilitate supervising ex-offenders' activities during this readjustment phase.”
