Alleged fake Disney casting agent charged with child prostitution
Updated ,first published
An Inner West man who allegedly pretended to work for Disney to lure young actors into sex acts has been charged with a string of offenses including procuring children for prostitution.
NSW Police said 57-year-old Gerard Vamadevan was arrested on Friday after police investigated reports he allegedly falsified documents and posed as a casting agent offering fake career opportunities in exchange for sexual activity.
Police officers executed a search warrant at a house in Lewisham on Friday, seizing documents and electronic devices.
Vamadevan was charged with false identification, stalking and intimidation, and crimes related to child prostitution.
In a bizarre bail court application filed Saturday afternoon, Vamadevan admitted to being on a sugar daddy-style website that connected younger women with older men willing to pay for companionship, and to going out for coffee and dinner with some of his alleged victims.
The court heard he paid for the meals.
“All I did was have a cup of coffee and talk to them, and one or two of them had dinner with me,” he said.
“I was lonely and looking for some companionship. I went the wrong way to build a network.
“My erection performance is no longer working,” he added.
The court heard Vamadevan had been jailed for similar offenses before. Daily Telegraph He reportedly posed as a “talent scout” for Channel Seven and made obscene phone calls to 46 different women.
The plaintiff, who represented himself, said he was heavily self-medicating with alcohol at the time of the crime – in 2022 – and that things were different now.
Vamadevan, who said he works as a pharmaceutical manager in a company based in the Philippines, said that he supported his young daughter, a law student, even though he had to leave the family home when he was imprisoned in 2022.
He said he was involved in a civil lawsuit with Disney and that arresting officers came to his home and threw him to the ground “like a terrorist.”
Vamadevan convinced the judge that he should be free and was granted bail on Saturday afternoon.
He is only allowed to use the internet for business purposes and must give police details of his phone and NBN connection, as well as report to Mascot Police Station.
