Los Angeles-location authentic estate magnate Mark Handel was the moment equipped to get point out laws specially drafted to suit his developments, persuade the metropolis council to give his tasks an interest-absolutely free six-determine personal loan, and to cultivate ties with guys who would afterwards depict the area in the Dwelling of Representatives and U.S. Senate.
But in accordance to supplies from a forthcoming documentary—which The Each day Beast corroborated through community records investigate and conversations with San Fernando Valley insiders—Handel, now going through federal fraud and revenue-laundering fees, maintained a parallel occupation as one particular of the most notorious and misogynistic figures in hardcore porn: Khan Tusion.
Just one of the directors powering the new film unveiled to The Daily Beast that he first read about Handel’s notorious change moi while doing the job on a movie dependent on a 2010 murder in the adult sector.
“People would point out this person ‘Khan Tusion’—they would simply call him the ‘boogeyman of porn,’ ‘the Freddie Krueger of porn’,” mentioned Lucas Heyne, whose prior movie Mope premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019. “He was recognised for becoming one of the most verbally abusive and physically abusive porn directors which is at any time existed.”
Handel’s legal professional did not reply voicemails or emails for this tale, and in a short cellphone exchange with The Daily Beast Handel himself insisted he would discuss only as a result of his authorized counsel. He did not reply to a subsequent simply call and text message detailing all the info in this post.
Heyne and his co-director, Sara Gardephe, told The Each day Beast Handel has been likewise unresponsive to their overtures—though they however hope he will agree to an job interview ahead of the film’s planned release up coming calendar year.
Khan Tusion’s films—which have titles like Rough Sexual intercourse and Meat Holes—are notorious for their scenes of female performers having beaten, spat on, stepped on, and even choked into unconsciousness. Taglines referred to the women of all ages he worked with as “jizzmops” and “the nastiest whores who really like to be handled like worthless pieces of meat.”
According to stars interviewed for the documentary, titled Pariah just after Khan Tusion’s creation organization, the cruelty and degradation that came from the male powering the camera wasn’t an act.
“Tons of women ended up abused by this just one male,” actor Taryn Thomas asserts in one clip shared with The Day by day Beast, recalling how she agreed to what she considered would only be a rough sexual intercourse scene in Meat Holes 3. “Nobody instructed me that I was likely to go to a porn established and I’m likely to be verbally abused, spit on, have somebody’s foot place on my vagina, Okay, or just about anything to that extent. And I’m likely to have to believe about the points this douchebag stated to me for the relaxation of my daily life. No, I should not have had to set up with that, and that was not in the agreement.”
A performer who formerly used the identify Regan Starr explained to The Each day Beast a Khan Tusion-orchestrated encounter so extreme that its distributor made the decision to drop the title entirely. Starr claimed that the director informed her only that she would surface in a “rougher sexual intercourse scene,” and discouraged her from working with a “safe word” that an actor can deploy when they want to halt filming.
“He was form of telling me in his personal way, that there was not heading to be a secure term, simply because even if I utilised it they weren’t heading to cease,” claimed Starr, who turned distraught while recalling what took place on set.
In retrospect, Starr mentioned she did not believe Khan Tusion ever told the male actor contracted for the scene that there was a secure word at all—and when she shouted it, in growing pain from her counterpart’s blows, Khan Tusion stored recording.
“He motioned to the next cameraman, the motion to maintain rolling, continue to keep rolling, hold rolling,” she reported. “His eyes acquired genuinely major and he received psyched. It was like he was in a trance, a satisfaction trance kind of issue. I’d in no way found anything like it.”
Last but not least, as Starr broke down in a panic—fearing, she explained to The Every day Beast, that she experienced unwittingly signed up for a snuff film—the scene lower abruptly small. It shortly grew to become infamous in the porn world, even as its director denied her edition of gatherings in marketplace publications.
What particularly disturbed and intrigued Heyne, and his co-director Sara Gardephe, about the brutal, menacing director is that he under no circumstances confirmed his confront and appeared to have labored to conceal his identity.
Lucas Heyne attends the Mope premiere during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Lucas Heyne attends the Mope premiere all through the 2019 Sundance Movie Competition.
Jerod Harris/Getty Illustrations or photos
In addition to the pseudonym, Khan Tusion utilised a voice distorter on film and in no way let himself be photographed or shown above the shoulders at market functions. In the 2001 British documentary Hardcore, the director pressured the filmmaker to hold the camera pointed at his torso, as he insisted he experienced a “different life” as a “pillar of the community” that he desired to protect. He claimed he built the films not for dollars but to achieve a high he described as “better than medications.”
But Heyne and Gardephe found it was an open top secret that Khan Tusion was in truth the politically-wired home developer Mark Handel, the brother of preferred but controversial radio host Invoice Handel. Monthly bill Handel advised The Each day Beast he is estranged from his brother, and taken care of the two have experienced pretty much no make contact with in the latest decades.
“The detail that very first caught my eye was that this man was just talking to these women for the greater part of the videos,” mentioned Gardephe, who previously directed a documentary about incels named Shy Boys: IRL. “We ended up uncovering a entirely insane story.”
In the interview with Thomas, the performer identifies a image of Handel as Khan Tusion. And a transparent paper trail right connects Handel’s respectable enterprises with Khan Tusion’s empire of humiliation and agony.
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Federal information demonstrate that the now-defunct emblems for Khan Tusion’s signature qualities, from his generation home Pariah Photos down to titles these types of as Frank Wank and Piss Mops, all belonged to a corporation referred to as MNP Enterprises LLC. California incorporation information exhibit that not only did Handel sign up this entity in his personal title, but even used the name and Calabasas deal with of his true estate firm, MWH Development, on the filing.
Insiders, most of whom requested anonymity to talk freely, described the San Fernando Valley as both the epicenter of the American porn marketplace and a locus of political electric power in Southern California. But the two circles seldom overlap, they claimed, as elected officers come across the refracted glare of the set lights unflattering for their public image.
Marketing campaign finance records display Handel poured countless numbers upon countless numbers of bucks into the electoral initiatives of local politicians—most notably, now-Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-C.A.) and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-C.A.), whom Handel has backed given that their times on the Los Angeles Town Council. Restricted nearby guidelines capped donations, but sources explained to The Daily Beast that Handel served as a liaison for Cardenas to the bigger Los Angeles actual estate community—allowing him to garner donations from an array of builders.
Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-CA).
