A real estate and adult film mogul famed for degrading women from behind the camera—and for cultivating ties to prominent Los Angeles-area pols behind the scenes—faces up to a decade of prison and probation, as well as millions in forfeitures and fines after confessing to hiding his true wealth on federal filings.
Mark Handel, known in the porn world by his moniker Khan Tusion, admitted in California Central District Court late on Thursday to concealing his earnings from the feds and his creditors alike in bankruptcy and tax documents filed last decade.
The plea deal, crafted earlier this month, outlines how Handel formed a company called DTMM Construction—an abbreviation for “Don`t Touch My Money”—in his wife`s name so as to hide income from multiple developments in and around the City of Angels, and how he knowingly failed to report roughly $7 million to the Internal Revenue Service between 2010 and 2017.
Handel`s lawyers declined to comment for this story. He now not only will have to pay back taxes, but cough up a minimum $500,000 fine and the proceeds of a $3.5 million property sale. He served a maximum of eight years in prison and was able to serve an additional three years on supervised release.
At its height in the 2000s, Handel was a key conduit for Democratic politicians with allies in both Sacramento and Los Angeles City Hall, including the current House of Representatives. Senators Tony Cardenas and Senator Alex Padilla both served in state and local legislation and, like Handel, were from the San Fernando Valley.
But Handel also ruled every corner of the valley where elected officials feared to set foot. As Khan Tusion, he created a porn franchise with titles such as Meat Holes and Butt-Licking Anal Whores, in which women have been known to be punched, yelled at, spat on, kicked, and even choked unconsciously. It has started. Actors who have worked with him claim that Tucion’s glee at the atrocities was not fake.
The performer, who went by the name Regan Starr, explained in an interview with The Daily Beast last year how the director continued filming while screaming for mercy under the beatings of his male co-stars.
“His eyes were really big and excited,” Starr recalls. “He was like in a trance, a kind of lust trance. I had never seen anything like it.”
According to the director of his Pariah, an upcoming documentary about Handel, Khan Tusion’s reputation has outlived the end of his movie career in 2010 and the demise of his DVD-centric adult industry in the Internet age. survived.
“They called him the ‘boogeyman of porn,’ the ‘Freddy Krueger of porn,'” said Sarah Galdev and co-director Lukas Hein. “He was known as one of the most verbally and physically abusive porn directors of all time.”
The federal lawsuit against Handel has nothing to do with his political or pornographic activism, but the ad alludes to his fundraising efforts. There is no evidence that the politicians he supported knew of his obscene alter ego, and tried to cover it up by using a voice changer and refusing to show his face in the film.
Handel he will be convicted in November.
