A Fugitive From Hollywood

Like countless other dreamers, Johnny Ray Gasca came to Hollywood with a screenplay to pitch and a list of moguls to schmooze.

Unlike most of the others, he quickly grabbed the movie industry’s attention -- but maybe not quite the way he had in mind.

Gasca, a Bronx native and convicted felon, is believed to be the first person charged in federal court with violating copyright laws by videotaping movies at pre-release screenings. Earlier this month, just days before his trial was to start, he bolted from the custody of his lawyer at a Long’s drugstore in West Los Angeles and is now a fugitive.

His escape is the latest twist in a “Get Shorty”-style saga of an ex-con trying to break into the movies while playing cat-and-mouse with authorities hoping to crack down on the industry’s piracy problem.

Gasca’s personal diary, which prosecutors view as a key piece of evidence in their case, describes in colorful detail how Gasca sought to get close to industry bigwigs while developing a lucrative sideline illicitly taping films.

But there’s a kicker. In an interview before he fled, Gasca, 35, said that his “diary” was a work of imagination. He wanted to turn it into a movie.

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Gasca’s journey from Hollywood wannabe to Hollywood’s most wanted began in August 2002, when he arrived in Los Angeles and took a room at the Mark Twain Hotel on Wilcox Avenue near Hollywood Boulevard.

At first, times were hard. He wrote in his diary that he was living “dollar to dollar.”

On the other hand, hardship is a relative thing. Back in New York, Gasca had been convicted in 1986 of grand larceny and possession of stolen property, as well as a string of other gambling-related misdemeanor convictions in the early 1990s. In 1992, he was sent to Rikers Island state prison for attempted murder. According to the court file, Gasca and a friend were arguing about money when Gasca shot his friend in the face with a .38 Special.

In Hollywood, he tried a more subtle approach. He said he had read nearly 50 how-to books on the art of schmoozing.

By early September 2002, he appeared to be getting into a steady stream of screenings, which studios use to gauge audience reaction and build word-of-mouth for films weeks or months ahead of official release. In some cases, Gasca simply hung around theaters where marketing research groups were known to sign up audience members.

At a screening of Paramount’s “The Core” that September, a theater employee reported that he caught Gasca taping the film, and Burbank police were called out. He was later charged with misdemeanor burglary and released on bond, according to the court file.

Gasca was unperturbed, if his diary entry is to be believed:

“All is well. I’m going to change my setup and go very hi tech (spy-glasses camera),” he wrote.

A month later, Gasca was spotted by a Universal Pictures executive with a “large bundle on his lap with a shoulder strap and a green light” as he watched a screening of Eminem’s movie, “8 Mile,” according to court documents. Security guards searched his belongings but were unable to find a videotape and released him, according to the court file.

Gasca had come to town just as Hollywood began tightening anti-piracy security. Federal authorities fear that career criminals and organized crime are supplanting Internet groups as the biggest threat to industry copyrights.

Certainly there is money to be made. The Motion Picture Assn. of America estimated that the industry lost $3 billion to pirates in 2003. In many cases, criminals would transfer their illegally recorded movies onto DVDs and then sell the copies for about $100 each. Quality varies widely, but piracy-monitoring firms say advancing digital camcorder technology is yielding dramatic improvements.

“I’m not sure if I’ll make it out of this drama,” Gasca wrote in October 2002. “But if I don’t, it was one hell of a ride.”

By December, Gasca claimed in his diary to be making it big selling his videotapes. In one week, he wrote, he made $4,000: “Wow! I don’t even get the chance to spend any money; yet, it keeps stacking up.”

It wasn’t apparent by his lifestyle. Gasca had moved to a studio apartment on North Vine Street in Hollywood with his collection of more than 1,000 kung fu movies. He traveled around Los Angeles by bus or subway.

Still, he pursued his dream of selling his script, “Between Heaven and Hell,” which he described as a science-fiction/martial-arts tale about five border patrol agents.

Though there’s no evidence he succeeded, he seemed to know exactly whom he wanted to meet: studio executive Michael De Luca, formerly of New Line Cinema, now with DreamWorks.

“One meeting with him is all I need,” he wrote.

Apparently Miramax Chairman Harvey Weinstein did not impress Gasca. “[He] is not high on my list of producers I want,” he wrote.

In January 2003 Gasca answered charges in the Burbank case. He noted in his diary that he was offered “30 days in jail and three years’ probation. Of course, I refused. However, by making me such an offer, they revealed that their case is weak.”

The case is still pending.

Later that month, Ventura County sheriff’s deputies were called to a screening of “Anger Management” at the Mann Theater in Thousand Oaks after somebody reported illegal videotaping. Two friends of Gasca’s who were at the showing told detectives that Gasca had been taping the movie but fled when the deputies arrived.

According to the court file, a video commissioned by the studio to gauge audience reaction captured Gasca in the act of recording the Jack Nicholson/Adam Sandler comedy from the front row of the theater.

The Ventura County district attorney’s office reviewed the case and, in light of Gasca’s criminal history, called the U.S. Justice Department, which had assembled a six-member squad of prosecutors in Los Angeles dedicated to cyber crimes and theft of intellectual property. The U.S. attorney’s office decided to file a request for a search warrant to inspect Gasca’s apartment.

They weren’t the only ones on his tail. Gasca had been spotted at enough screenings that MPAA undercover officers also were on the lookout.

“We knew him from his days in New York,” said Ken Jacobsen, senior vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations at the MPAA’s office in Los Angeles.

Even with the law closing in on him, Gasca was determined to continue meeting Hollywood movers and shakers.

One priority, apparently, was getting close to “The Matrix” producer Joel Silver. On Feb. 27, Gasca got into a screening of “Cradle 2 the Grave,” also produced by Silver, where an MPAA anti-piracy supervisor spotted him, according to court records.

“After the film was finished, I stayed near Mr. Silver waiting for my moment,” Gasca wrote in his diary. “And then I noticed the MPAA agents were grouped at the other side of the lobby -- staring at me.... When I looked over to Joel, he was talking with Tobey Mcguire[sic]. So the MPAA is watching me and I’m watching Spider-Man just 3 feet away.”

Nothing happened that night. But on March 13, federal agents searched Gasca’s apartment and seized video recording equipment, 15 VCRs linked together to make multiple copies from one master tape and a belt with a concealed video camera, according to court records.

The court documents say Gasca confessed to the agents that he had indeed been pirating movies not only in Los Angeles but also in New York -- including “Spider-Man” and “Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace.”

He even described how he used a micro-camera clipped to his belt to tape “Anger Management,” according to the court file. He allegedly told agents that he had attended 25 to 30 screenings in L.A. and recorded six of them.

Gasca was not taken into custody. Authorities thought they could build a stronger case by waiting. Indeed, the next day, Gasca made a threatening phone call to MPAA officers in New York, authorities said.

“What I’m thinking is sabotaging the movie industry,” he said, according to the court file. “I want some payback. I want my VCRs back. I have access to over 20 major releases that aren’t out. I can do some damage. I’ll have films released and laugh all the way to jail.”

According to the FBI, he also threatened to kill the postal worker who delivered his mail, thinking that the mail carrier had given information to the FBI.

On April 11, he was charged by federal prosecutors with conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, witness intimidation, economic extortion and identity theft.

Based on Gasca’s prior offenses and current criminal charges, he could be sentenced to up to 23 years in federal prison -- if he can be found and convicted.

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In a summertime interview at the downtown Metropolitan Detention Center, Gasca denied doing anything to prompt the charges against him.

“It’s a ridiculous claim. No one in this world has the power to sabotage the movie industry,” Gasca said. “Why would I speak like that when I came here to break into the film industry? They’re going to put my face on the $3 billion that they’re losing every year. They’re just trying to use my case to send a message.”

Gasca apparently was determined to send a different kind of message.

On Jan. 7, two days before his hearing, Gasca was allowed out of custody in the company of his court-appointed lawyer, Alan Rubin.

Gasca told Rubin that he had the flu and needed to buy some medicine. So the pair went to the drugstore around the corner from Rubin’s West Los Angeles office, the lawyer said. As Rubin grabbed a bottle of orange juice from a cooler in the back, Gasca told him he was going to get some soda. Rubin followed him.

“He turned the aisle and was gone,” Rubin said in a telephone interview.

Rubin, who recused himself as Gasca’s lawyer and is now a material witness in the case, said he was mortified to report to the judge at the hearing that his client had disappeared.

“I’ve never been in this situation,” he told U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson on Jan. 9. “I’m so distraught and so angry.”

Pregerson seemed understanding. “You are dealing with a very difficult client,” he said.

Perhaps Gasca was afraid of returning to prison. Or maybe the lure of a Hollywood ending was just too great.

“I have a unique talent,” Gasca said in the interview. “I could be a great filmmaker.... In fact, I’m working on the script of this whole episode.”

Munoz is a Times staff writer. Fellers, a reporter in the Minority Editorial Training Program, conducted the jailhouse interview for The Times last summer; she now is assigned to the Chicago Tribune.