PTFO Exclusive: The NFL Union Elected a New Leader. We Investigated the Hollywood Cover-Up They Ignored.

Summary

Pablo Torre Finds Out: The NFL Union's New Leadership and the Ignored Hollywood Cover-Up

Podcast Information:

• Title: PTFO Exclusive: The NFL Union Elected a New Leader. We Investigated the Hollywood Cover-Up They Ignored.
• Host: Pablo Torre
• Guests: Mike Florio, Anne Henry, Amy Berg, Joey C.
• Release Date: August 14, 2025

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Introduction

In this riveting episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out (PTFO), host Pablo Torre delves deep into the recent election of a new leader within the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) and uncovers a troubling Hollywood cover-up that has been systematically ignored. This episode intertwines the intricate dynamics of sports unions, Hollywood's handling of child actor abuse, and the enigmatic figure of David White.

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Election of David White as NFLPA Leader

Key Points:

• The NFLPA has elected David White as the interim executive director, succeeding Lloyd Howell, who resigned amidst scandal.
• David White's selection was controversial due to his previous role as the executive director of SAG-AFTRA, the actors' union.

Notable Quotes:

• Mike Florio [00:21]: "There are kids today who did not put themselves in bad situations, parents who learned from that..."
• Pablo Torre [02:54]: "This storytelling has been honored by the Edward R. Murrow Awards and Peabody Awards."

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David White’s Controversial Background

Key Points:

• David White previously served as SAG-AFTRA's executive director and played a pivotal role in merging SAG and AFTRA.
• His tenure was marred by accusations of being management-friendly and lacking a strong stance against union collusion.

Notable Quotes:

• David White [04:00]: "I've seen it so many times now, I don't think it's a joke anymore."
• Pablo Torre [05:02]: "David White in the present tense is in fact the winner of... the most corrupted search in the history of pro sports unions in America."

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Connections to Hollywood’s Child Actor Abuse Scandal

Key Points:

• The episode explores the intersection between the NFLPA and Hollywood, particularly through David White’s involvement with SAG-AFTRA.
• A significant focus is placed on the documentary An Open Secret, which exposes the sexual abuse of child actors in Hollywood.

Notable Quotes:

• Pablo Torre [21:08]: "The union requested that no inaccurate reference to SAG AFTRA be made that tied the union to any alleged misconduct out of context."
• Mike Florio [31:21]: "The union wanted that removed from the film. The real goal they were setting out to achieve becomes revealed..."

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Introducing Anne Henry and the Biz Parents Foundation

Key Points:

• Anne Henry, co-founder of the Biz Parents Foundation, shares her experiences as a parent of child actors and her organization’s efforts to combat child abuse in Hollywood.
• The foundation played a crucial role in advocating for the Child Performer Protection Act (AB 1660) in 2013.

Notable Quotes:

• Anne Henry [38:23]: "Children are mostly willing to listen. They're ready to absorb things."
• Mike Florio [25:14]: "Our kids were being sold on eBay... They weren't sexy pictures. They were just pictures of little eight-year-old boys."

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The Attempted Cover-Up by SAG-AFTRA

Key Points:

• SAG-AFTRA, under David White’s leadership, attempted to suppress the documentary An Open Secret by threatening legal action.
• The union's actions aimed to remove references to its Young Performers Committee and its involvement in the scandal.

Notable Quotes:

• Pablo Torre [50:04]: "What they wanted was to erase the entire reason why Michael Hara was a person of influence from the story of his confessed sexual assault."
• Mike Florio [55:08]: "It's so indicative of their misunderstanding of the entire problem."

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Impact on the NFLPA and Broader Implications

Key Points:

• The election of David White raises concerns about the NFLPA’s commitment to addressing corruption and protecting its members.
• There is a troubling parallel between the NFLPA’s current leadership choices and the historical mishandling within SAG-AFTRA.

Notable Quotes:

• Pablo Torre [62:26]: "I'm grateful for the people who invested money to make a movie like this. That movie has saved a lot of lives."
• Mike Florio [64:34]: "The union is censoring the film... They don't get predator behavior, and that's why we still have a problem."

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Conclusion and Reflections

Pablo Torre wraps up the episode by reflecting on the systemic issues within powerful unions like the NFLPA and SAG-AFTRA. He questions whether the problems stem from malice or incompetence, ultimately drawing a bleak picture of institutions prioritizing their interests over justice and transparency.

Notable Quotes:

• Pablo Torre [65:48]: "Was this malice or incompetence? And is that just another attempted distinction at this point, without much of a difference?"
• Mike Florio [65:48]: "I think if SAG would have made a different decision, if David White would have made a different decision 10 years ago..."

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Key Takeaways

1. Leadership Concerns: The election of David White as NFLPA leader brings to light significant concerns regarding his past actions and affiliations within the actors' union.
2. Cover-Up Attempts: SAG-AFTRA’s efforts to suppress critical documentaries reveal a pattern of neglecting serious misconduct issues.
3. Impact on Vulnerable Populations: The intersection of sports and entertainment unions highlights systemic failures in protecting child actors from abuse.
4. Call for Accountability: The episode underscores the need for greater transparency and accountability within powerful unions to prevent future abuses.

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out masterfully intertwines the realms of sports and entertainment, shedding light on deep-rooted issues within powerful unions. Through meticulous investigation and compelling narratives, Torre exposes the dark underbelly of institutional negligence and the ongoing struggle to protect the most vulnerable members of society.

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For more insights and updates, follow Pablo Torre Finds Out on YouTube, Instagram, X, and subscribe to Pablo’s newsletter.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're going to find out what this sound is.

[Mike Florio]

There are kids today who did not put themselves in bad situations, parents who learned from that, and I think many more would have if SAG would have made a different decision, if David White would have made a different decision 10 years ago than he made on that.

[Pablo Torre]

Day right after this ad.

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[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, Mike, I. I dragged you here. Let's be honest about what's happening today.

[David White]

Kicking and screaming.

[Pablo Torre]

You had reservations. You had reservations.

[David White]

Strenuous objections.

[Pablo Torre]

But the number one request that I keep on just trying to suppress but attend to in the back of my head, and this is the number one request by far that we get from the Internet, Mike, is can you please investigate Jeffrey Epstein?

[David White]

I've seen it so many times now, I don't think it's a joke anymore. I think they really do believe that you have the power. Not me, because I haven't really added much to this production other than charm. But you, you have the chops. You can find Epstein list, if there is one.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. Our YouTube channel on Monday innocuously posted the following question for our audience. Quote, should we find some things out this week? And the most popular response, again, by far, metrically, was, quote, the Epstein files. Period. Impress us. Period. And so I fear that yes, the only thing that can satisfy the next phase of this NFL, NFLPA ongoing collaboration of a series that is endless, that we have been engaged in, the two of us together is in fact digging up documents that help investigate a powerful cover up of. Yeah, pedophilia.

[David White]

So hello, the act of concealment. It's an impressive thing when they pull it off.

[Pablo Torre]

In this case I bring you back because another week has passed where I end up using my would be vacation investigating yet another major development in this story, the story about the NFL and the nflpa. And this development should ring a bell for anybody who listened to episode three of this series only two weeks ago. Because last week, Mike, the NFLPA finally elected their interim executive director to replace Lloyd Howell who for those who have not been paying any attention, had to resign in disgrace on account of, you know, that buried 61 page collusion ruling that we surfaced as well as a conflict of interest side gig with the Carlisle Group which has a financial relationship, of course with the NFL. There were strip club receipts, there was the ongoing FBI investigation into one team which we dissected at length in episode three. But the guy that the NFLPA has elected to replace that guy, Lloyd Howell, is who?

[David White]

David White, also known as the guy who finished second in a two man race that resulted in the hiring of Lloyd Howell. You know, it went so well the last time. The process was so flawless and unimpeachable. Let's just go back and elevate the first runner up. Much like a beauty contest when the Miss Wherever is unable to fulfill her obligations over the course of the ensuing year, they elevate the first runner up. That's basically what they did with David White because it did go so well in the selection of Lloyd Howe.

[Pablo Torre]

We are so close to making a second runner up Miss Maine Pageant reference to Jordan Hudson. But I'm not me. You. I'm going to risk both of us, I think is fair to point out both of us, but David White, who was most famously previous to this election, the head, the executive director of SAG aftra, which is the Actors Guild in Hollywood.

[David White]

I'm a member, by the way. I'm a member, I think on the AFTRA side, not the SAG side, the AFTRA side.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, the AFTRA side figures in in a second here. Put a pin in Mike Florio's membership on AFTRA and thus SAG aftra, because that is a David White joint. The merging of those two unions, which we'll get to. But David White in the present tense is in fact the winner of, yes, this sequel to the most corrupted search in the history of pro sports unions in America, engineered by J.C. treader, a subject of our reporting previously the chief strategy officer who told the union, by the way, in article on the website at one point to trust the process. That was the headline before, of course, he wound up resigning himself days after Lloyd Howell. And so yes, now we get Mike, the candidate that JC Treader in the reporting after all of this mess became public. We get the guy that JC Tretter says, actually I wanted this guy all.

[David White]

Along, the guy who won the 10 to 1 straw poll that was conducted by the executive committee. Of course there's no evidence of and for whatever reason, they didn't bother to tell the board of player representatives before they voted for the guy who got the 1 in the 10 to 1 vote. And there's no way to prove, like I'll see articles where the 10 to 1 vote by the executive committee is treated like gospel truth. There is no way to verify that that actually happened. And I wish that the people who are writing these stories, and I don't need to name names, they know who they are and we do too. I wish they would not treat it like it is a provable, objective, free fact, because it is not.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, I fully agree. And yet today what I want to do is actually take them at their word. Let's say you wanted David White, because there was another development, a significant development, Mike, in the reporting around this story in the Washington Post. And this reporting was in fact the tipping point for me because this article from the Washington Post, it involves a series of statements from, again, what is left of this same NFLPA regime. And this regime officially pushes back on my reporting in episode three. And they argued that two issues that I brought up about David White's previous tenure as the executive director of Mike Florio's union, sag, aftra, that now that these are not problems at all. In fact, to quote the Washington Post, the NFLPA emerged from its vetting convinced there were no issues that would disqualify White as a candidate. So before we get to these two issues in specific that the NFLPA has now waved away in the Washington Post, I just want to quickly note something, Mike, that my Hollywood sources, my own union sources have been telling me all week, which is that SAG and the nflpa, there's actually something of a Venn diagram here. And this is in terms of overlapping circles of leadership, but also in terms of the problems that face both actors and athletes. And in fact, Mike, you may remember one particular name from your decades of running Pro Football Talk, the nation's foremost clearinghouse for NFL news and information. And that name is Doug Allen.

[David White]

Doug Allen, the number two, essentially for Gene Upshaw, who led the NFLPA's executive director for some 28 years.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, the former Penn State linebacker under Joe Paterno, who then played for the Bills, who in 2007 left the NFLPA after 25 years, right underneath Gene Upshaw to become SAG's executive director. But by 2009, just two years later, Doug Allen was ousted amid internal unrest of his own. And so the union selected an interim executive director. If any of this is sounding familiar at this point, to replace Doug Allen, the football guy. And the guy they chose as interim happens to be SAG's former general counsel at the time. None other than David White. And David White, Mike, would proceed to get the full time job around 2012, and that is when he managed the merger, the hotly debated, very controversial merger, because does Leonardo DiCaprio really want to be in a union with Mike Florio? Right.

[David White]

You know, I don't think, I don't think that takes high level journalism skills to get the answer to. I think we can make an assumption as to what Leonardo would have to say.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, aftra, which is the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, this whole merger grows the union, that union to more than 150,000 members. It's an enormous organism now, which meant, by the way, that David White's command of the granular details was essential. David.

[David White]

SAG is affiliated with the AFL CIO.

[Anne Henry]

Through an organization known as the 4As, which is the association of American Artiste.

[Pablo Torre]

Of something with an A. Look, I'm not here to dunk on a guy for not knowing all the acronyms, even though he is the again executive director of the union. I am here to point out that all of this brings us back to those two issues, Mike, those two detail laden issues that I brought up in episode three that the NFLPA has waved away in the Washington Post. And issue number one was David White's willingness to play ball with management. If you could do me a favor here and just read from the gust pages of the Washington Post, quote, the.

[David White]

Podcast Pablo Torre finds out reported that after White left SAG AFTRA In 2021, he was rumored to be in the running to lead the alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. In a move that would have suggested he was willing to play ball with management. It said the NFLPA spokesperson said White was not a candidate for such a position, but was approached by a recruiter regarding his interest in the role and he declined, end of quote.

[Pablo Torre]

This is where I should also reiterate something. David White, as you know, Ghosted me on LinkedIn as well as over email and text, by the way. So I cannot verify any of this stuff. But again, I just want to accept at face value what they're saying now, which is that David White was recruited, rooted, but declined the job of Hollywood Roger Goodell. And so what I did was interview a bunch of trade union sources in Hollywood and also just read a ton of the coverage of David White at the time because again, it's the Hollywood press, they're all over this stuff. What becomes clear, Mike, is that David White's scouting report is actually a lot like Lloyd Howell's in one key respect. He was known to be management friendly. And this wasn't really in dispute. In 2009, the prominent entertainment reporter Nikki Fink wrote about David White, quote, the big media moguls have told me they like this guy, which is good or bad, depending on a SAG member's point of view, end quote. And this week, one high level Hollywood union source told me, quote, david White isn't a fighter, he glad hands. And then my source proceeded to joke, as if commuting directly with Mike Florio, quote, david White would have buried the collusion ruling too, end quote. And look, I, I want to be fair here because if this parallel to Lloyd Howell seems over the top, there is just one thing, one other fact pattern I want to mention for you. Because David White had previously been SAG's general counsel. It turns out that the person who brought him there at age 33, he was a prodigy of sorts, was his mentor. His mentor is a guy named Bob Pisano. And Bob Pisano worked at the same law firm David White did. Bob Pisano then left that firm to become an executive vice president at Paramount. And then he left Paramount to become the vice chairman of MGM. And then he became SAG's executive director in 2001. And I'm going to quote for you here from Backstage magazine, Mike, this is the Hollywood trade publication because when Bob Pisano was hired, they said it was because of, quote, the strength of his studio and executive background, which was seen as an asset in contract negotiations. It was the first time the union had gone outside of its own ranks to fill the spot, end quote. And I just wonder if any of this, any of this logic sounds a little familiar to you at this point.

[David White]

This all gets back to the post Demorris Smith vision for the NFL Players Association. The idea that fighting doesn't get us where we want to be. We need to negotiate, not litigate. So even though Lloyd Howell didn't pan out, instead of swinging the pendulum back the other way, they just, as we previously established, elevated his first runner up from a process that was hopelessly inept. Because in many respects it was the same people making that decision. And my guess would be they had no other better idea. So let's just go back to the well and take the guy who finished second to the guy who didn't work out.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. To quote one of the NFL player reps who told ESPN about Lloyd Howell's pitch to them, just to draw the parallel as precisely as possible, they said, quote, in a nutshell, it was like, I'm going to know how to negotiate with the owners because I am from their world. I am a businessman, the player said. I've been the guy fighting against unions for the corporation. So I know exactly how they think and how they do things, end quote. And this is a philosophy, you know, on top of all of the corruption, it is a worldview, it is an ethos, to quote the Big Lebowski, Mike. And the process really brings the room together, it turns out.

[David White]

Here's what bothers me about it, because Lloyd Howell, David White, same attitude. We don't want to fight, but we've been in management and we know how to fight unions, but as the union, we don't want to fight. And it gets back to this imbalance where. And it was articulated very well by Sean Gilbert when he tried to unseat Demora Smith a decade ago as executive director of the nflpa. They want you, they, the owners want you, the players to think it's a partnership, and it's not. So please come partner with us as we extend a hand in friendship and then the other hand has a knife that is swinging around to gut you.

[Pablo Torre]

But the funniest parallel between the David White, Bob Pisano stuff and the Lloyd Howell stuff, which explains all the things you just said, the funniest parallel here, Mike, is something else that I found out while diving into these guys history together. Because when Bob Pizzano was head of sag, the actors union, there was a scandal. It was a conflict of interest scandal. And it was centered around the breaking news at the time that Bob Pisano and I want you to just brace yourself for this. Bob Bazzano quietly had a side gig on the board of directors of Netflix. And according to SEC filings, Bob Bazzano had made millions cashing in his Netflix stock options. If that just sounds a little, a little familiar to something we've covered.

[David White]

No problem at all. Everything is fine. What are you going to do? Hold back guys who are a little enterprising and want to make some money on the side? Why would you want to hold them down, Pablo?

[Pablo Torre]

Well, the guy that Bob Pisano got to make that argument for him and more, I'd like you to guess who he was.

[David White]

I assume it's David White. I would assume it's David White.

[Pablo Torre]

It was Bob Pisano's mentee, SAG's general counsel that he had brought to the union, David White, who again, according to the Washington Post, as per the nflpa, definitely does not play ball with management. And so now you may be wondering if you're listening to this, maybe David White has distanced himself from his mentor because it's been a while. And that is true. But there's just one more detail about all of this, about this particular issue that made me laugh very hard because last week, and this was on account of the whole Lloyd Howell conflict of interest, Carlyle Group part time consulting gig thing, which is the parallel we've been referencing over and over again, the NFLPA also announced that David White, having now won the interim NFLPA job, had officially stepped down from the other boards he serves on. This is now officially unlike Lloyd Howell, as the Washington Post also explained, quote.

[David White]

According to the spokesperson, he is resigning from his board service, including his role on the board of global professional services and consulting firm rgp. The spokesperson said White no longer serves as the board chair of the Federal Reserve bank of San Francisco, end quote.

[Pablo Torre]

And the Federal Reserve bank of San Francisco. I kind of can guess what that is. Cool. Rgp. I don't know if you had any idea what this is. I absolutely did not. I googled it stands for Resources Global Professionals. But the most relevant detail about the board of rgp, the board that David White was on happens to concern the chairman of that board. And I will give you one guess, Mike, as to who the chairman of that board is.

[David White]

While the universe would be in perfect synchronization if that person were indeed Lloyd Howell, I will assume that perfection has not quite been crafted to that level. And I will say that it had to have been Robert J. I have no idea if that's his middle initial.

[Pablo Torre]

Pisano, Bob Pisano. And his name is a period. Robert Pisano is the right answer. And so history does in a sense. You know, it is rhyming here for you.

[David White]

Well, and this is the mindset that the Union wanted in 2023. They wanted someone who had this connective tissue to management and they got him and it didn't work. So let's just try it again maybe. And there's a certain logic to it. Maybe it's like flipping a coin and it'll land on heads this time around.

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[Pablo Torre]

Or, or you end up showing your tails. Papazano said in a glowing press release last week about his mentee, quote, we wish him well in his new position as a fully dedicated leader of the NFL Players Union, end quote. This level of responsibility and apparent transparency, though, it brings us at long last to the second issue that I brought up in episode three with you that David White had faced as the NFLPA is again declaring via the Washington Post that they have fully vetted and dismissed all concerns about the guy they have elected. And this second issue to me is actually the way bigger issue. It's the biggest story here to me because it involves SAG AFTRA's attempt to to allegedly censor a documentary, a documentary made by one of their own members, an Academy Award nominated documentarian. And this documentary was about the sexual abuse of child actors in Hollywood and also SAG AFTRA's attempt to allegedly cover all this up. Quote.

[David White]

In 2015, Deadline reported that SAG AFTRA had threatened to sue director Amy Berg unless she removed all references to to the union in her documentary An Open Secret. According to the report, the union denied it, threatened a lawsuit, and White repeated that denial in an email to the union's board of directors. Berg told Deadline that the union used legal threats to try to sanitize the film. The NFLPA has reviewed this issue closely and feels confident that it has been fully briefed on the facts and context, the spokesperson told the Post. The NFLPA concluded, the spokesperson said, that the core issue was focused on the unauthorized use of SAG AFTRA's name and brand in the film. The union requested that no inaccurate reference to SAG AFTRA be made that tied the union to any alleged misconduct out of context, the SAG AFTRA board was informed of and involved in this matter at the time, end quote.

[Pablo Torre]

A hell of a day. If you've been in fact in our comments begging PTFO to investigate something related to the Jeffrey Epstein cover up, because this is gonna be the episode for you and for this part of this series. Mike, I had to talk to somebody we have not talked about or named before. This is an impressive new character in this whole story and they're gonna Join me after the break.

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[Pablo Torre]

Thank you for listening to a bunch of the NFLPA episodes we've done. So you understand what I'm generally doing here, I guess.

[Mike Florio]

I think so. Maybe I'm not really terribly a sports person, but my whole family is, so I get it. But I had not heard any of this story before, so when you called it was a new shock. So.

[Pablo Torre]

So I should just clarify here that the name of the person I am talking to is Anne Henry. And Ann Henry is truly one of the most remarkable people that I have ever come across. And although Ann Henry did not realize this, last week she became essential to understanding where the NFLPA and therefore America's most popular and powerful sport goes from here.

[Mike Florio]

I am the co founder of a nonprofit called Bizparents Foundation. We are a nonprofit that serves the families of professional child actors. So our clientele, our families have to learn how to navigate a world that's unfamiliar. Things like finances, labor unions, and contract negotiations. We started out just doing business and then over time we stumbled upon a world that we weren't expecting and that ended up being some child abuse issues during the day.

[Pablo Torre]

Just to be clear, Ann Henry has a different job. She works at an elementary school in Southern California, but in 2004 she co founded Biz Parents, the volunteer organization she's Describing for us for a very simple reason. Ann Henry's three kids all became child actors. And she quickly noticed something strange.

[Mike Florio]

When our kids were working, when they started out, very small headshots were paper. They were actual paper headshots. Like think old school Hollywood. You know, black and white are color headshots. And we found our own children, our boys, being sold on ebay for lots of money, hundreds and hundreds of dollars. And they weren't sexy pictures. They were just pictures of little eight year old boys. Like cutesy, wootsy little eight year old boys in oshkosh overalls, you know, and you're like, why the would anybody want those? And it took a while until we figured out that there were some very bad men who wanted those headshots. The world of people who should have been protecting kids weren't doing it.

[Pablo Torre]

Which is how the Biz Parents foundation has since done more than any other organization to raise awareness of child abuse in Hollywood. And if this topic makes you queasy and you want to stop listening to this episode entirely, honestly, I completely understand.

[Mike Florio]

We probably knew who Jeffrey Epstein was around 2008, 2009. At first you think it's crazy and then you start to find some kernels of truth and you go, oh, but what if, what if some of it's true? And then you're like, oh God. And the more you start to realize there are some grains of truth and you go, crap. Well, I got to figure out which what's true. I got to sort of what's true and what's not.

[Pablo Torre]

This vetting done by Anne Henry, who wound up serving as an FBI informant, by the way, in at least one child abuse case, proved to be well ahead of its time. And it goes well beyond Jeffrey Epstein. For instance, you may have heard about that documentary that came out last year called Quiet on Set, in which the former child actor Drake Bell, who was the star of the popular 2000s Nickelodeon show Drake and Josh, finally stepped forward to admit that he was the anonymous victim of an acting coach slash actor by the name of Brian Peck.

[Drake Bell]

I don't know. I really don't know how to elaborate on that. On. On camera, really.

[Pablo Torre]

Whatever you feel comfortable or you think.

[Drake Bell]

Why don't you do this? Yeah, why don't you think of the worst stuff that someone can do to somebody as a sexual assault and that'll answer your question. I don't know how else to put. Was not a one time thing. It was not a. Oops, I. No, I mean.

[Pablo Torre]

You should know that Ann Henry and biz parents had been all over that specific story. They'd been building their own files, actually their own collection of tips and notes and police records and ebay transactions for years and years, warning people about how Brian Peek had pleaded no contest in 2004 to two felonies in relation to an anonymous child actor whose identity this organization of moms had chosen to protect.

[Mike Florio]

We knew all of it. We knew all of it. And we had kept that secret for 10 years. I don't think I've ever told anybody this, but we felt very strongly about Drake Bell. I'm going to cry because he was so brave. He is the only victim that has ever been successful in Hollywood at going all the way through and getting a sex offender convicted as a child, getting him on the sex offender list and keeping his identity secret.

[Pablo Torre]

Which now brings us to July 1, 2013, when a California law that Ann Henry and the Biz Parents foundation had personally spent years fighting for finally passed. AB 1660. The child performer Protection act officially mandated a fingerprinted database of approved providers so that all parents could legitimately vet the people working with their kids. And for the first time, it became a crime for anyone with a previous sex offense to work with children in Hollywood. All of this caught the attention of an Academy Award nominated documentarian named Amy Berg, who went on to direct a pretty astonishing 2014 documentary about pedophilia in Hollywood called An Open Secret. And that specific documentary is the entire reason that a journalist like me, who has been vetting David White's 12 year tenure as the executive director of SAG AFTRA and now his less than two week tenure as the head of the NFLPA, decided to reach out to Ann Henry in the first place.

[Mike Florio]

Amy Berg's production company had already done a documentary about the Catholic Church, so they had some knowledge of predator behavior. So she came to us to say, what do you guys know? Can we follow you around Sacramento as you do this law? And at that point we said, you know, have we got some files for you? So we got together and decided that for the first time ever, we would consider letting someone look at our files. And the files were messy. They were very messy because we had no way to have the manpower as a nonprofit of volunteers to really data sort all of those little scraps of paper and little half notes because most of these people had not been convicted. It's just little things like a parent calling us and saying, this guy hugs my kid too much on set and he gives me the creeps. Okay, nobody's getting Arrested for that. But it's one of those things that, you know, is a first sign, you know, is something, you know, you just. Your gut tells you that's bad. And when 10 people tell you that, that. That's the point. When we all know we should do something. But you can't call the police. Right. What do you do at that point? So that's what we did.

[Pablo Torre]

It's the database that no one had been keeping, that you guys had been on a voluntary basis out of an instinct to protect the most vulnerable members of our society, let alone this actor's Guild. Right. And so if that's the state of the union when it comes to how open this secret has been in Hollywood, I do want to turn my attention now to the entity, the committee inside of SAG, aftra, that is ostensibly charged with looking after these kids. Because the Young Performers Committee and is really essential to where and why our paths here ended up crossing over.

[Mike Florio]

There is a committee called the Screen Actors Guild Young Performers Committee, and it's existed for about 40 years. The committee meets once a month or so. They do orientations for kids as they join the union and talk to them about all the ways that they can help them and classes they can give them and how they should manage their money and things like that, if the kids choose to partake in that kind of education.

[Pablo Torre]

So I'm looking up the history of it. Co founded in 1975. And the man that I want to draw our attention to is a man by the name of Michael Hara.

[Mike Florio]

Michael Hera was one of the founding members of that Young Performers Committee. He's been a leader on the committee. He was one of the originals.

[Anne Henry]

A lot of managers now in the business. When I first came to town managing kids, I was the only one. No one else managed children. They never heard of it. They looked at me like I was crazy. Several of the established agents wouldn't even talk to me. I must be a terrible person if I was coming with all these kids.

[Mike Florio]

He was always the knowledge in the room. He knew the history of everything at SAG there was to know about the young performers. Everything. He knew the contracts left and right. He was the person who led all the orientations. For as long as I can remember. He had SAG Kids on his license plate. That was his personalized license plate.

[Pablo Torre]

Wait, wait, wait. So his. His car.

[Mike Florio]

His car.

[Pablo Torre]

The custom plate said what?

[Mike Florio]

SAG Kids, right? Yeah, his side gig, which I didn't know for some time, but I came to know, and I did know him personally. His side gig was he was managing child actors, but his role in SAG was a leader. He was a leader, but a volunteer leader. He was not on payroll at sag, as far as I know.

[Pablo Torre]

It reminds me though, there was this meeting, a Young Performers Committee meeting, which is mentioned in an open secret. And it's a meeting that you were at. This was a meeting that seemingly had been called because of a well known publicist in Hollywood named Bob Villard.

[Mike Florio]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Who had worked with Leonardo DiCaprio and Toby Maguire. And again, this brings us back to what you mentioned, which is ebay and those photographs.

[Mike Florio]

This meeting was a. Was a Young Performers Committee meeting, a regular meeting. A bunch of parents came to this meeting because it had been publicized in the LA Times that this guy Bob Villard was arrested and they were looking for more victims. The parents brought the article from the LA Times, a particular parent named Kathy McCall and said, Are you going to send out an email or something to the SAG members that are minors saying, are there victims of this man? Like, don't you think people ought to know? Because if they don't get the LA Times, they're not going to know. And this guy seems like a bad guy. Bob Villard, by the way, had already had a long history of porn.

[Pablo Torre]

I was looking for articles and I found, yes, L.A. times, in this case, 1988, quote. A California agent for child actors was convicted in a New Jersey court Monday on charges of interstate transportation of child pornography. A Camden federal court jury found Robert D. Villard of Van nuys guilty on two counts of transporting a pornographic photo and two magazines aimed at pedophiles to New Jersey on November 14, 1986, and then transporting them back to California two days later.

[Mike Florio]

That had already happened. So now we're on another one. He's being picked up again and the parents bring in a SAG and saying, don't you think we ought to tell people about this guy?

[Pablo Torre]

About the convicted sex offender.

[Mike Florio]

Yeah. Who's now being arrested again and is.

[Pablo Torre]

Also a photographer of some kind.

[Mike Florio]

His shtick was that he would do these photography sessions to other pedophile men managers. And that was the story was, come on over, I'll take some wink, wink headshots for your clients. And the pictures would end up in all kinds of interesting Internet places. We get to the meeting, there's probably 30 parents there, and Michael Hera goes bonkers and is like, absolutely not. We are not putting this out to the members. And 30 parents went, what the f. You know, and that was the first Time it was like, okay, something's weird about this guy. Michael Hera is not a good guy.

[Pablo Torre]

When did you realize the depths of what Michael Hera was actually involved in?

[Mike Florio]

Honestly, I didn't realize it until the interview.

[Pablo Torre]

In an open secret, I'm one of.

[Anne Henry]

The founding members of the then Screen Actors Guild Young Performers Committee, now SAG aftra, and I have been the chair of the committee in the past. Now I'm just a foot soldier. Children are mostly willing to listen. They're ready to absorb things. They haven't yet developed any preconceived ideas about who they are and how they're going to get somewhere. We try and advise them what directions to go in. And when you're doing that, you're managing the parent as well.

[Mike Florio]

I didn't know. I really didn't know. There were hints, but I never saw him with. Well, I saw him with children, but I never saw him do anything with a child that was weird. I mean, my daughter was on the committee with him. I never heard any allegations. No one ever complained about him because they wouldn't have. So the only thing I saw was that one moment in that meeting years before and until I had the phone call from production who called me that day of the interview and said, ann, you are not going to believe what just happened in this interview. And I went, what? And they told me, we just got on camera this wild situation where a victim called him on the phone.

[Pablo Torre]

It is crazy to me that I did not know about this until the whole David White NFLPA story brought me to this, because it's. I mean, just to. So I. I talked to Amy Berg about that day. And I mean, she calls it, you know, one of the most disturbing hours of her entire life. Let me just make sure I get all this down. Yeah.

[Amy Berg]

What I remember is that Michael Hera was a manager of some prominent actors, and I requested an interview with him through the Screen Actors Guild. I think it was SAG aftra and their publicity person asked me a bunch of questions. And then the interview was approved. And he showed up with a SAG AFTRA representative who was sitting in the other room. And I started asking him questions, and he started to confess to me things. I mean, are you attracted to young boys?

[Anne Henry]

Not particularly, no. So much of what goes on in these situations happen almost by accident. You get the idea that someone out there was a child predator and they were preying on children, and everything they did was to steer the child into this. And a lot of the ones that I at least was aware of just. They just sort of fell into it.

[Amy Berg]

Did anyone ever try anything on you when you were a kid actor?

[Anne Henry]

Well, I guess so. I don't. My whole approach to the whole thing was not sexual. I mean, it was. Yeah, I suppose somebody did. If I would be hard pressed to remember anything specific. But it wasn't uncommon, let's put it that way. It's difficult when you're living in a situation where there isn't the adult supervision there should be to see how things are going to be perceived. And I don't know what else to say about it.

[Pablo Torre]

The first thing that you realize is that, wait a minute. Michael Hera and Bob Villard, those guys weren't just mere acquaintances.

[Anne Henry]

No, I knew Bob Villard casually as someone who was in the industry. And he did do publicity sometimes for clients that I had.

[Mike Florio]

And he handled big names like Toby.

[Pablo Torre]

So then there is a child actor who goes by the name of Joey C. Now a grown up in the film. And he says, in fact, I met Bob Villard through a guy named Michael Hera.

[Joey C.]

So I meet Bob Villard as a publicist who can, as a good photographer, bring exposure and whatnot. I believe through Michael Hera.

[Mike Florio]

He was one of our biggest ebay sellers. It became obvious to us that Bob Villard was selling candid photos that he had taken.

[Joey C.]

You're there for a weekend and he feels just comfortable enough to try to touch you when you drank a few beers or it's always good to get that few beers. And he tries to touch me.

[Mike Florio]

We always knew his photo style because he typically, typically had the kids shirtless, typically took an angle that was from the top down so that the children are looking up at the camera as they would be looking up at the predator in an abuse situation.

[Pablo Torre]

So now all these questions are being raised about, okay, wait, so the Michael Harrop part of this thing, what was he doing? And there's another child actor actually who is interviewed in this film again now a grown up. His name is James G. And he observed something about Michael Harrah's home, which also kind of like set me back.

[Michael Hara]

A couple feet, you know, being up sometimes really early to go to these auditions and stuff. That was when Michael had. Michael Harrod approached me and said, you know, well, you can come and stay at my house with, you know, the other guys that are there. He had three other guys staying in the house with him that were his clients.

[Anne Henry]

Many of the kids that I worked with couldn't have even been able to take advantage of being in the industry had they had to have their families.

[Michael Hara]

Move here with them from 10, 11 to 16, 17. But I still thought it was rather odd, you know, that a someone would let their 10 year old son move in with at the time, I think mid-50s year old man.

[Anne Henry]

I do see the possibility that things can be misinterpreted and I try to be very aware of that. No matter how closely you're working with someone and you do work closely with clients in these situations, there still has to be that professional line in there where, where you say we're not stepping over this.

[Mike Florio]

Just so you know, there is zero norm for that in the entertainment industry. None. None whatsoever. It ties to current events in the. @ Jeffrey Epstein World. Why do we have models giving massages? Why did he have, you know, it's that, it's, that's what's happening. They're convincing people that they need an opportunity and that they can provide them an opportunity that will further their skills and their, you know, this is a lucky opportunity. They'll give them all the circumstances and possibilities if they just do this right. No, no.

[Pablo Torre]

All of this brings us to Joey C. Calling up Michael Hera on camera.

[Joey C.]

Yes, hello, Michael. Yes, hi, this is Joey.

[J]

Well, hello, Joey.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Joey C.]

How are you? What? You were. What?

[J]

I was just thinking about you.

[Joey C.]

Oh, you were?

[J]

Yeah, I was. I was reading an old Hawaii magazine theme and I was thinking about you.

[Joey C.]

Yeah, well, it's been a while, huh?

[J]

Yeah, it has. I haven't talked to you in a while. Kind of lost track of you.

[Joey C.]

Yeah. What about you? What are you doing?

[J]

I've retired.

[Joey C.]

You have?

[J]

Yeah, I still have one or two clients that still come around, but it's not like it was. So I'm not taking on anybody new. I say that and then watch. I'll do it.

[Joey C.]

But what about. Have you heard from Bob lately?

[J]

Bob Villard? Oh, Bob Lard. Last I heard he was in prison, Joey.

[Joey C.]

Oh, is that right? For what?

[J]

Well, I assume some sort of a problem with children. But as they tried several times to get him and somehow or other they didn't. But last I heard he was. So now I don't know anything about that. I don't know how long it was or anything else. So no, I haven't heard from him in a long, long time. Oh, Forgotten about him actually.

[Joey C.]

Well, that's kind of, that's, he's, that's kind of the reason why I got out of the business. I don't know if you ever remember that I slid his Lip open with throwing something at him. And I was on my way home, never to come back. And I. I've gone through a lot of therapy, and I don't condone it. Anything that he tried to do, and Lord knows what he's done to anybody else. I don't know. And I don't know Joey.

[J]

And, you know, I take these things with a grain of salt. I'm not sure how horrible they really are.

[Pablo Torre]

At that point in the documentary, you're already like, okay, so Michael Hera, who is this longtime SAG AFTRA official who was the face of this committee, ostensibly there to look after these kids, this is him on a phone call that he does not seem to know is being recorded for this documentary, which we're getting, like, the candid spin that he would give a kid that he. He knew Joey C. And already you're like, oh, he's just lying.

[Mike Florio]

Well, yeah, and he's. And he's spinning. The guy's telling him this traumatized me. Clearly, he's saying, I've been traumatized. And his answer is, I don't know how bad it is.

[Pablo Torre]

And it just proceeds from there.

[Joey C.]

Well, I don't think it's right for anybody to take advantage of anybody. And I think that it's. That whole. That whole thing is. Is rotten, what he tried to do to me. And I, quite frankly, I didn't like when you tried to have me sleep in your bed and touch me and everything. I hated that, too.

[J]

And that was something unwanted. I shouldn't have done it. And there's no way you can undo that, but it certainly is something I shouldn't have done.

[Pablo Torre]

That is just one of the most astonishing things I've heard on tape. Just that candid confession that notably, by the way, when Amy Berg gets Michael Hera across from her in the chair with that SAG AFTRA representative monitoring the interview, he then proceeds to say something different.

[Anne Henry]

I don't know what Joey is remembering, but I don't remember anything that would have caused him to feel that way. All I can say is that as a result of the situation he was in, not only with me, but with others, that that was how he perceived something. It certainly wasn't anything I intended, and that was going to be my response to it.

[Mike Florio]

SAG would have known, probably within minutes of that interview, they would have known that he had admitted to whatever happened in that interview. We wondered if they were going to do anything about that. It was silent. We waited. We waited. It took months and months and months and the next thing we heard was that SAG was going to sue the production.

[Pablo Torre]

And that's where David White enters the story.

[Mike Florio]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

So I want to recap this because it is a remarkable thing, given that now, hopefully, people listening to this story understand what the letter that the council, the outside counsel hired by SAG aftra, which was run by its executive director, David White, what that letter said to the makers of the film, Amy Burke and her production company. Because Deadline first reported this in June of 2015, I'll just quote the Deadline piece by David Robb, quote, it may be the first time a Hollywood union has ever threatened to take legal action against a filmmaker over the content of a film. End quote. And this letter, I mean, is also astounding to go back and look at it. And I've now reviewed a copy of the letter sent by SAG AFTRA, their outside counsel. It is D, December 3, 2014. The bottom reads, quote, this email constitutes a confidential legal communication and may not be published in any manner, end quote. Well, Deadline obtained a copy. I have as well. And the letter ccs their client, David White, among other SAG AFTRA officials. What was your reaction when you heard about this letter?

[Mike Florio]

My first reaction was, wait a minute. The. The union is censoring the film? I don't. I don't understand. Because a union is there. That's exactly what they don't do. A union, the screen actors guilt is about creativity, about free speech. It's exactly what they do not do that is completely antithetical to their mission. That makes no sense. Then when you go, oh, they're censoring a film about the abuse of actors. What? That's even number two. Strike two. That makes no sense whatsoever. That doesn't make any sense. And then when I saw the letter, I realized it wasn't from SAG itself, it was from an outside attorney, which seemed weird too, because SAG has an entire floor of attorneys. Why would sag, who deals with copyright law every day, why would they go outside to an outside attorney? That seemed odd, too. So when I finally saw it, I went, oh, litigation attorney. Oh, this is. They're gonna sue. This is a litigation. This isn't a nice request to please take our logo off something. This is. They're gonna sue the letter.

[Pablo Torre]

What it demands is a number of things. I just wanna walk through this as clearly as I can with you. Because the first thing, they wanted Amy Berg to remove the references and the chyrons on screen that indicate that Michael Hara had any connection to the young performers community. Which again, he co founded and led for years and was a member of at the time of the interview.

[Mike Florio]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

This is the quote from. From the outside. Counsel, please be advised that Mr. Hara is not now parentheses and was not at the time this documentary was screened and parentheses, a member of or in any other way affiliated with the quote, unquote, SAG AFTRA Young Performers Committee, end quote. Whatever allegations may have been leveled against Mr. Hara have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with SAG AFTRA or any of its committees, end quote. So, for instance, in other words, that bite we heard before in which Michael Harris says on tape, I'm one of.

[Anne Henry]

The founding members of the then Screen Actors Guild Young Performers Committee, now SAG aftra and I have been the chair of the committee in the past. Now I'm just a foot soldier.

[Pablo Torre]

The union, David White's union, wanted that removed from the film. The real goal that they're setting out to achieve becomes revealed in point number two, because the letter then proceeds to tell Amy Berg to delete all references in the film to the SAG AFTRA Young Performers Committee of any kind. Quote, demand is hereby made that no references to sag, to SAG aftra, or to any SAG AFTRA committees be included in any portions of this documentary. End quote.

[Mike Florio]

And it's like, hey, hey, hey. It's a film about child actors. Hate to tell you what the. What are you talking about?

[Pablo Torre]

Like, how can. But how can you erase. How can you erase the entire reason why Michael Hera was a person of influence from the story of Michael Harrah's confessed sexual assault? They then proceed to demand that Amy Berg cut a scene showing the front of the union's building and the large SAG AFTRA 1 union logo that was on it. They wanted that part cut. And then they demanded that Amy Berg cut a large portion of her interview with you as the co founder of Biz Parents Again, the organization that has done more than any other one that I'm aware of to raise awareness.

[Mike Florio]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And by the way, the part seems to be the. That. That story that you told me in which the Young Performers Committee is gathering to discuss what to do with publicists slash photographer slash pedophile Bob Villart. Like, that was the part where they were like, we can't have that in there.

[Mike Florio]

It's frustrating because it's so indicative of their misunderstanding of the entire problem. And it frustrates me because we're 10 years later and still aren't getting it, that the whole problem is they don't get predator behavior. And that's why we still have a problem at that point. When that inflection point happens, you have to decide how you're going to respond. And at the point that you respond, that's your choice. That point. SAG had a choice that day. They could have said, wow, you know what? We're faced with a situation that Michael Hera, one of our volunteers, screwed up. And you know what? We're kicking him out this minute, five minutes after that interview, and we're issuing a press release and we're saying how horrible this is and we're organizing 5 billion things to make it right. That's what we're doing. That's leadership. That's what they could have done. And here we are ten years later, and David White is still, still denying it 10 years later.

[Pablo Torre]

I was thinking about, like, what would an executive director of the SAG Aftra organization, what could he have done? What should he have done? Even if his concern was simply, man, you know, I don't want a viewer of this documentary to think that SAG Aftra intentionally sure propped up a guy they knew was a pedophile. We should clarify that. We're as shocked and as horrified as anybody to learn this. But instead, what happens is that letter is sent threatening legal action and then there's a cover up of the COVID up. Right, Right. So they attempt to cover up the fact that SAG Aftra is certainly a character in this story in a meaningful way. Then they try to spin, I mean, David White. Later that month, June 2015, he sends an email to the board of directors of SAG Aftra claiming that he never threatened to sue the filmmakers.

[Mike Florio]

Right. Because at this point, the circumstances around it, at that point in time, it's now they realize this film is screening in la, it's got press. There's news articles every day about this film. There's every, every major news article is out there. It's on the news every night. There's talk. And it isn't playing well that SAG is trying to censor this film.

[Pablo Torre]

And then in the email to the board of directors, David White writes, quote, as you may already know, an inaccurate story about SAG Aftra posted online at Deadline today, end quote. And he references also a statement that the Guild had given Deadline, and I'll quote that as well. We have not yet threatened to sue this producer, nor did we attempt to suppress any factual or accurate information in this production. End quote. Meanwhile, I should point out that Deadline reported something about the lawyer. The lawyer, the Outside counsel that SAG AFTRA hired would give deadline the publication the following statement. Quote, our firm has been authorized to pursue all appropriate legal remedies, end quote. And there might be an a, a hilarious semantic difference between a lawyer telling you that we are authorized to pursue all appropriate legal remedies and a lawyer explicitly saying, I'm about to sue you. But if anybody can detect that distinction and tell me the difference, I am all ears.

[Mike Florio]

Especially when that same lawyer identifies themselves in the very first sentence, as we are litigation attorneys for SAG aftra. Okay?

[Pablo Torre]

But the point being here that I came to you because the nflpa, which has now elected David White, the aforementioned executive director of SAG Aftra, as their interim executive director, and the NFLPA told the Washington Post that the, quote, core issue was focused on the unauthorized use of SAG Aftra's name and brand in the film, end quote. Which is to say, this is a real logo problem.

[Mike Florio]

I'm not a football girl, you know. However, I would have to say that I think anyone who knows the facts of what happened 10 years ago would have to say there is no way that anyone who was aware in Hollywood would say this was a logo issue. It wasn't about just their logo, and it was all about how a leader reacts to a crisis situation.

[Pablo Torre]

And so, on account of everything you just heard, I had to fact check one more thing with both Amy Berg, the director of An Open Secret, and Anne Henry, the co founder of the Biz Parents foundation, our two key characters in this sordid story. And this thing is, to me, the most obvious thing in this entire episode, maybe this entire saga. Because again, I had just read an article in the Washington Post last week.

[David White]

That said this, quote, the NFLPA has reviewed this issue closely and feels confident that it has been fully briefed on the facts and context, end quote.

[Pablo Torre]

And so my last question for Amy Berg and Ann Henry then was simple. Did anyone ever contact you from the NFL, Pennsylvania, or a search firm working for the NFLPA about David White?

[Mike Florio]

No, they never did.

[Pablo Torre]

Has anyone from the nflpa, anybody from a search firm hired by the nflpa, anybody from the world of sports? Have they reached out to you?

[Mike Florio]

No one. No one has contacted me about this at all. Nothing.

[Pablo Torre]

And so I'm just left here, I guess, to wonder about something that I find myself asking a lot in this apparently endless investigation. Was this malice or incompetence? And is that just another attempted distinction at this point, without much of a difference?

[Mike Florio]

I get it's hard content. I do. I get I don't want to see it. I totally get it. I mean, but it is, it is a good movie. I'm grateful for the people who invested money to make a movie like this. That movie has saved a lot of lives and I appreciate that. I mean, there are kids today who did not put themselves in bad situations, parents who learned from that, and I think many more would have. If SAG would have made a different decision, if David White would have made a different decision 10 years ago than he made on that day, I'm sure that no one thought it was going to roll around 10 years later either.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, I'm not sure I foresaw me talking to you 10 years later.

[Mike Florio]

Yeah. Yeah. Talking about the NFL was not on my bingo card this week either, let me tell you, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

And so just before I finally let you go here, I do just need to acknowledge that the NFL, the biggest cultural force in America, has gone from being absolutely terrified of the collusion ruling, the 61 page PDF that I released in episode one, to now licking their chops at the management friendly empty suits that we've met in episode four. Because this NFL Pennsylvania regime, out of malice or incompetence, seems designed to give the league what the league wants ultimately, which would be an 18th regular season NFL game and an even bigger share of the financial piece. Although the NFLPA does not seem eager to discuss any of this with noted SAG AFTRA member Mike Florio.

[David White]

I asked the union for an interview of David White. I'll do it by phone, I'll do it by video, I'll do it in person. And they said, we'll put you on the list. And that was some five days ago. And I've yet to hear anything more.

[Pablo Torre]

And in their defense, these guys have said it. All right, the union's executive committee, led by President Jalen Reeves Mabin, is not only trusting J.C. treader's stupidly broken process, they are also doubling down on their designed results. Just listen again to executive committee member Austin Ekeler, the commander's star running back, who said this to the Athletic in July after Lloyd Howell had resigned, quote.

[David White]

I love what we did as far as our process. There were a few issues that wound up biting us that we couldn't have foreseen at the time. But I like where we're at, end quote.

[Pablo Torre]

And so what I found out today, after four episodes of vetting these leaders and hearing the truth about Michael Hera, the open secret David White did not want you to know is the answer to that question that I posed a bit earlier. Is this malice or incompetence? And my answer looks a lot like the NFL PA's approach to the only two finalists in the most search process in Sports Union history. Why not both? This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.

[Mike Florio]

SA.