Lawyers who represented Michael Egan III, an actor who has claimed that several prominent Hollywood figures sexually abused him as a teenager, have conceded that his allegations about two of the accused were fabricated. They have issued a formal apology and paid the men a seven-figure sum, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Mark Gallagher and Jeffrey Herman represented Egan in lawsuits filed against former Disney executive David Neuman and TV producer Garth Ancier in April 2014.
“I believe that I participated in making what I now know to be untrue and provably false allegations against you,” Herman wrote in a letter to Neuman and Ancier last week. “Had I known what I learned after filing the lawsuits, I would never have filed these claims against you. I deeply regret the pain, suffering and damages the lawsuits and publicity have caused you, and your family, friends and colleagues.”
Egan also filed a suit against theatre producer Gary Wayne Goddard, which he subsequently dropped, and film director Bryan Singer. Egan’s claim against Singer, who has directed X-Men, X-Men 2 and The Usual Suspects, stands. Herman dropped Egan as a client last July, reportedly after his client refused to agree to a settlement of $100,000.
This year, Egan was convicted of fraud in a separate case in North Carolina. Egan has not released a public statement.
In a statement, Ancier wrote: “I said on day one this was all absolutely false, and I’m certainly pleased that’s now been admitted by the lawyers responsible for transforming absurd fabrications into a real-life nightmare for me.”
Egan, who is being sued by Ancier, is one of several men who have spoken out about alleged child sex abuse in Hollywood. He was interviewed at length for director Amy Berg’s documentary, An Open Secret, a film featuring interviews with former child stars who claim to have been sexually abused by key Hollywood figures during the late 1990s. The documentary, which received a limited run in Seattle and Denver this week, was edited to remove mentions of Egan’s abandoned lawsuit against Singer before release.
Speaking to the Guardian at Cannes in May, An Open Secret’s producers, Gabe Hoffman and Matthew Valentinas, said they had had “weekly, often daily calls” with a first-amendment specialist lawyer to ensure that the film was legally sound. “We’ve not had one lawsuit yet,” Hoffman said. “We’ve not even had one threatening letter from anybody.”