The ripple effect of last December’s arrest is washing over Mark Salling this week as it was announced today that he’s been fired from the production of Adi Shankar’s Gods and Secrets following an indictment last Friday on child pornography charges. The US Attorney’s Office from Central California struck a deal with Salling and his lawyer for the former Glee star to turn himself in to federal authorities on June 3 for arraignment.
Two charges were filed, one count of receiving and one count of possessing child pornography on a laptop and a flash drive, according to Deadline. The charges specifically address two videos Salling received in December 2015, though investigators from the LAPD have said his laptop also contained thousands of images of child porn.
If convicted the possession charge could carry a sentence of up to 20 years, the receiving charge has a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years and maximum of 20.
When the news of Salling’s arrest first broke Secrets director Adi Shankar said he was going to withhold judgement until he knew more. Today he released this considered statement:
The innocence of our planet’s children is something that must be protected at all costs. As entertainers, our role is to be the “conscience of humanity,” striving to make the world better for future generations. Sadly, we live in a country where statistically at least 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, 80,000 children are reportedly sexually abused every year, and at least 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls are sexually abused before the age of 18. Even more troubling, exponentially more cases go unreported as in most situations, authority figures are ill equipped to help. Every two minutes, an American is sexually assaulted.
The aforementioned statistics are nauseating, reminiscent of a third world country, and until very recently, kept out of the limelight. Child abuse is a cultural cancer whose tentacles penetrate far deeper than a single celebrity caught with illicit images on his computer, just as date rape is a far more prominent issue than the repeated transgressions of one mediocre entertainer from the 1970’s. Child abuse is a democratic disease existing across socioeconomic lines affecting every walk of life. It affects all of us, and more importantly, its existence needs to cece [sic] to exist. Period.
‘Adi Shankar’s Gods and Secrets’ will be moving forward without Mark Salling. He has been cut from the mini-series, I will personally be paying for the reshoots, and I hope that Mark finds inner peace. Furthermore, a percentage of profits from the project will go to a charity for abused children. Hopefully some good will come of all of this and I pray that when the dust has settled, the hyper-connectivity of the information age that has brought to light the transgressions of several public figures, will also force us to look within our society to identify and eliminate the root cause of the rape culture we exist in.
Shankar has executive produced movies like Lone Survivor, Dredd, and Machine Gun Preacher. At 23 years old he became the youngest producer ever to have a number one film at the box office with 2011’s The Grey. He’s amassed a cult fanbase with his “Bootleg Universe” independent shorts of reimagined characters including James Bond, The Punisher, and Judge Dredd.
This is Shankar’s James Bond bootleg, In Service of Nothing. It’s one of the few that doesn’t carry a warning for graphic sex and violence:
Not much has been released about Gods and Secrets, which is in production for HBO. It’s described as a fresh take on superheroes that aims to explore their human side. From the official synopsis:
Adi Shankar’s Gods and Secrets’ explores the darker ramifications of a world with superheroes, both on the people they protect and the heroes themselves. Tragedy has struck the Guardians of Justice, and in its aftermath secrets are revealed, lives are changed, and the war to end all wars begins. Death, secrets, and lies threaten to tear the Guardians of Justice apart, and the world with them.
The project is reteaming Kellan Lutz and Jackson Rathbone from the Twilight franchise, alongside Denise Richards, Jane Seymour, RJ Mitte (Breaking Bad), Sharni Vinson (Dragon Blade), and Diamond Dallas Page (WWE, Devils Rejects).
Salling isn’t the only celebrity facing serious charges this week. The Wire actor Michael Jace was found guilty of second degree murder today in the death of his wife April. His sentencing is scheduled for June 10th and he could receive up to 40 years in prison.
Celebrity jail time is often considered a joke based on blink-and-you-missed-it terms like those served by Khloe Kardashian (served a few hours on a 30-day sentence for parole violation) or Nicole Richie (82 minutes on a 4-day sentence for DUI). And sentencing fairness has been questioned when names like Paul McCartney are given just 9 days out of a possible 7 years for drug possession, or Chris Brown is given no prison time and 5 years probation for felony assault and criminal threat.
But because Salling’s charges involve children and the potential for trafficking that is fed by demand for child porn, the Department of Homeland Security was involved in the arrest and charges carry federal weight. This also isn’t his first run-in with the law; in 2011 a former girlfriend sued him for sexual battery and assault, though the charges were eventually dropped and the case was settled.
No word yet on who might be in the running for Salling’s Gods and Secrets role.