Martin Investigative Services was the agency hired to investigate allegations made by a concerned family member. We could have never imagined the results.
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Defendant marries alleged victim in statutory rape case
Now 18, the young woman has stopped cooperating with Orange County prosecutors. The charges against the defendant’s former fiancee have been dropped, but the case against him continues.
By Joseph Serna and Jack Leonard
The criminal charges were disturbing: A Newport Beach fitness photographer in his 30s carried on a months-long sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl after promising to help her modeling career.
Aiding him, prosecutors said, was the photographer’s fiancee, who allegedly gained the trust of the girl’s mother before delivering the teenager to photographer Jason James Ellis so they could spend time alone together.
Nearly three years later, as the statutory rape trial draws near, the case has taken a bizarre turn, with Ellis marrying his alleged victim three months after she turned 18.
The alleged victim has stopped cooperating, dealing a blow to the prosecution’s case. Last month, the Orange County district attorney’s office dropped all charges against Ellis’ former fiancee, Michelle Hecker, announcing that it could not proceed without the help of the teen’s testimony.
Nevertheless, prosecutors say they have enough evidence to push ahead with a trial of Ellis, 36, who has pleaded not guilty. The photographer, who bills himself as the “King of Covers” and shoots bodybuilders and other fitness models, faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of charges including lewd acts on a child and unlawful sexual intercourse.
The case underscores the unusual challenge prosecutors face if alleged victims and perpetrators wed.
Husbands and wives can refuse to testify against a spouse, but the privilege does not apply in criminal cases in which the spouse is the victim. Legal experts said lawmakers added exceptions to the privilege to prevent offenders from effectively derailing prosecutions by marrying their victims.
Complicating the case is the fact that California law prohibits courts from jailing sexual assault victims if they refuse to testify against their alleged assailants. But the law does not apply to victims in statutory rape cases, leaving prosecutors with a difficult decision in the case against Ellis, said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor.
“What you don’t want is to look like you’re beating up the victim. I don’t think that a jury would like that very much,” Levenson said. “But there may not be much to lose…. If the answer is that they had sex, that’s the end of the case.”
The alleged victim could not be reached for comment. The Times generally does not name victims of sex crimes.
Authorities say the girl’s mother introduced her daughter to Hecker in 2006 at a Laguna Hills equestrian center. The mother asked Hecker to be a mentor to the girl, and Hecker encouraged the teen to consider modeling. She introduced the girl to Ellis in early 2007, according to court records.
That June, the girl’s mother signed a contract with Hecker and Ellis allowing her daughter to work for the couple in return for Ellis taking modeling photographs of the teen. In November 2007, Hecker, Ellis, the girl and her mother took a trip to Paris together.
Around the same time, an estranged aunt of the teen called Newport Beach police and said she was troubled by how much time her niece was spending with Ellis and Hecker, according to testimony by a detective at the couple’s preliminary hearing.
Newport Beach Police Det. Penny Freeman said investigators checked the couple’s criminal history, found no record and felt they did not have enough information to follow up with the girl or her mother. Still concerned, the aunt approached a private investigator, who watched the girl for a week in June 2008.
The investigator’s surveillance video showed Hecker picking the alleged victim up from school, dropping her off at Ellis’ Newport Beach apartment or at the Fashion Island mall, where she would be greeted by Ellis, Freeman testified. One video showed the girl and Ellis eating lunch at a mall restaurant, kissing on the lips and touching affectionately, he said.
The private investigator, Thomas Martin, took the girl and her mother into the Newport Beach Police Department with the evidence he had collected.
Freeman described Ellis as manipulative and said the girl was naive and in love.
“I truly believe that [the girl] loves him,” the detective said in an interview this week. “I don’t know if it’s a genuine relationship the other way around.”
The girl told police that Hecker encouraged her to have a relationship with Ellis, according to Freeman’s testimony. The teen said she had sex with Ellis, sometimes while Hecker was in the same apartment working on the computer or cooking dinner for the three of them, according to Freeman.
Ellis and Hecker were arrested in July 2008. When police searched Ellis’ home, Freeman testified, they found two framed photos of the girl on his bed stand.
Shortly after the arrests, the alleged victim received a text message from Hecker’s cellphone signed “J,” the initial of Ellis’ first name, according to Freeman’s testimony. The message asked the girl whether her mother would consent to her marrying at 16.
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Photog Caught on Camera With 15 Year Old
By David Schoetz
An accomplished California photographer and his former fiancee both face charges tied to his alleged year-long sexual relationship with a teenage girl that began when the girl was 14.
Jason Ellis, 33, was arraigned by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office Tuesday on seven felony child-sex charges. He was released from jail on $100,000 bond, police said.
His former fiancee, 31-year-old Michelle Hecker, turned herself in to the Newport Beach (Calif.) Police Department this afternoon. She was scheduled to be arraigned on a felony charge of aiding and abetting Ellis, specifically by developing trust with the girl’s parents and helping arrange rendezvous between the pair and concealing the relationship.
Orange County prosecutors say Hecker met the unidentified girl while horseback riding a year ago when the teen was 14. She allegedly introduced the girl to Ellis and drove her to and from a meeting with Ellis during which Ellis and the girl spent time alone together. She is accused of “having the victim change into and out of horseback riding clothes to hide her activities from Jane Doe’s parents,” the Orange County District Attorney wrote in a release.
“After meeting the victim, Ellis is accused of continuing to see Jane Doe and grooming her to develop a sexual relationship,” the district attorney’s office wrote. Ellis took the girl on dinner and movie dates, prosecutors said, and was physically affectionate in public and private.
The Newport Beach Police Department started investigating the case on June 25 when the girl’s family showed up at the police station to report the illicit relationship. Police obtained a warrant for Ellis’ arrest, but he and Hecker temporarily disappeared after apparently learning that police were looking for them.
On July 6, an officer in the neighborhood looking for Ellis stopped him in his vehicle and made the arrest, according to Evan Sailer, a spokesman for the Newport Beach Police Department. Authorities later obtained the warrant for Hecker’s arrest.
The investigation originally began when a relative, concerned about the teen girl’s relationship with Ellis, contacted private investigator Thomas Martin, president of the Newport Beach-based Martin Investigative Services. In an interview with ABC News, Martin, a former federal agent with the Justice Department and longtime PI, said the he was originally skeptical, but within hours of beginning surveillance, his team found enough evidence of an illegal relationship to contact police.
Martin said his team twice witnessed Ellis and the girl participating in what he categorized as “disturbing acts.” But when he turned over the evidence, Newport Beach police initially told Martin, with whom they have worked before, that the evidence did not merit a warrant.
But Martin said the police welcomed any additional information he might find.
Martin said he then contacted the teenager’s mother and arranged to meet. She was blindsided by the news of the alleged relationship with Ellis, but ultimately gave him permission to contact the teenager directly. Martin said the girl confirmed the relationship when he spoke with her.
“I then immediately took her and her mother to the Newport Beach Police Department,” he said.
PI Catches ‘Consensual Relationship’
Martin, who caught the relationship in surveillance footage, shed some light into what he described as a “consensual” relationship between the 33 year old and the teenage girl, now 15. Martin said one of his investigators followed Hecker from the teen’s house to a shopping plaza 20 miles away, where Ellis was waiting for the teenager in a second vehicle in a parked car.
Martin also said that Ellis and Heckler somehow managed to take the girl on a vacation to France.
“It’s one of the most egregious cases I have ever seen,” Martin said. “Sometimes you have these 15-year-old girls who may look like they are 18 or 19, and these guys think the relationships are justified.”
Ellis has extensive experience as a photographer, shooting covers for several major magazines and clients, including Maxim, Elle, Muscle & Fitness and Calvin Klein, according to the Jason Ellis Photography Web site. He specializes in physique photography and has worked with several well-known bodybuilders. He studied at Arizona State University, trained in Europe and is working on his first coffee-table book, according to his bio.
E-mail and phone messages left by ABC News at Jason Ellis Photography were not returned, nor was a call to the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, which reportedly represented Ellis at his arraignment Tuesday.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office is asking any other potential victims to come forward.
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Photographer’s fiancee arrested in underage sex case
By Jon Cassidy and Kimberly Edds
NEWPORT BEACH – A woman accused of arranging sexual rendezvous between her fiance and a 14-year-old girl turned herself into the Newport Beach Police Department this morning.
Michelle Hecker, 31, was arrested at 9:30 a.m., police said, and is expected to be arraigned on the same six counts facing her fiance, magazine photographer Jason Ellis, 33.
According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, Hecker introduced the unnamed teenager to Ellis after meeting her through a common interest in horseback riding.
Prosecutors allege Hecker helped the relationship along, gaining the trust of the girl’s parents enough to where she would pick up the teen under the guise of going horseback riding or on some other outing, and then take her to meet with Ellis.
Authorities allege that the couple promised the girl that Ellis could help her with her modeling.
Beginning in August 2007, Ellis courted the girl, according to prosecutors, taking her to the movies and dinner, even kissing and touching the teenager in public.
Ellis, known for photographs that have made the covers of Elle, Maxim and numerous muscle and fitness magazines, was charged Tuesday with three counts of lewd acts on a child, and three more counts, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The girl told authorities she was in love with Ellis.
Hecker and Ellis both face up to seven years in state prison if convicted.
Suspicious of the relationship, the girl’s parents hired private investigator Tom Martin to follow their daughter.
The girl’s parents called Newport Beach police after Martin turned over the information he had gathered on the girl and her two adult companions, according to prosecutors.
Ellis initially fled the area after learning he was wanted in the statutory rape case, but was arrested 10 days later.
Hired by Ford Modeling Co. as a photographer at age 17, Ellis has garnered international attention for his “physique” photography, shooting ads for Calvin Klein and muscle building publications, according to his Web site. Majoring in photography at Arizona State University, Ellis traveled to Paris to serve as an apprentice for several of Europe’s top fashion photographers, according to Ellis’ biography posted on his Web site.
In addition to shooting numerous magazine covers and advertisements, Ellis has also directed several short films, including “My House” featuring Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler.
Ellis was being held in lieu of $100,000 bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned July 18.
Anyone with additional information may contact district attorney’s Investigator Tim Craig 714-347-8558.
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OC photographer arraigned on rape charges
By Eileen Frere
NEWPORT BEACH. Calif. (KABC) — An Orange County photographer is under arrest on suspicion of having a sexual relationship with an underage girl.
Thirty-three-year-old Jason Ellis was in court Tuesday afternoon for his arraignment in Newport Beach. Ellis’s work has been featured in magazines such as Elle and Maxim. However, as of Tuesday, he is facing a number of charges, including rape, involving a 15-year-old girl.
This case came to light after a family member called a private investigator because they were concerned that the teenager was spending too much time with the defendant and his fiancée. Officials say the suspect lured the victim with promises of helping her modeling career.
The alleged assaults happened last year when she was 14, up until last month. Ellis allegedly met the girl through his 31-year-old live-in fiancée, Michelle Hecker, who was also facing charges for allegedly helping arrange for the two to meet. She is also facing charges for letting the sex crimes occur and for gaining the trust of the girl’s parents. Ellis’s fiancée is accused of picking up the girl from her parents’ home under the guise of taking her horseback riding. Instead, she allegedly took the girl to be alone with Ellis. The alleged assaults stopped when the girl’s parents hired a private investigator.
“My agency, Martin Investigative Services, was hired by a family member to look into allegations that this family member felt bordered not only on criminal activity, but just gave her a very, very uneasy feeling about the relationship between one of the family members and two other adults,” said private investigator Thomas Martin. “I’ve been in law enforcement. And as a private investigator for 38 years, it’s as egregious as I’ve seen,” added Martin.
Ellis’s arraignment has been continued until July 18. Ellis’s bail is set at $100,000. The judge also issued an arrest warrant for Ellis’s fiancée Michelle Hecker.