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Speaker 1: Did you see the docuseriies Quiet on the Set The

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Speaker 1: Dark Side of Kids TV? Well, if that shocked you,

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Speaker 1: then this story of what happened to a number of

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Speaker 1: young teen guys just trying to make it in Hollywood

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Speaker 1: masshock you even more. I'm Patty Steele. The Inner Workings

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Speaker 1: and the depravity of Den. That's next on the backstory.

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Speaker 1: The backstory is back. If you are young and obsessed

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Speaker 1: with the idea of making it in Hollywood, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of easy to see how people with money and connections

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Speaker 1: can look like a seductive path forward. Well that's what

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Speaker 1: happened to so many young guys back in the late

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Speaker 1: nineteen nineties when they were introduced to the men that

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Speaker 1: ran the Digital Entertainment Network otherwise known as DEN. DEN

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Speaker 1: was a pretty ambitious venture, an early attempt to revolutionize

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Speaker 1: how we consume media with internet based content. The guys

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Speaker 1: at DEN aimed their programming at teens and young adults,

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Speaker 1: with original programming streamed online, whose brand new thinking at

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Speaker 1: the time really quickly. DEN had a huge buzz in Hollywood,

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Speaker 1: not just for its pioneering technology, but also for its

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Speaker 1: insane parties. A list celebrities showed up at the nearly

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Speaker 1: thirteen thousand square foot mansion in Encino, California, the Den's founder,

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Speaker 1: Mark Collins, Rector, shared with his business and life partners.

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Speaker 1: They were Chad Shackley, whom Mark metwin Chad was still

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Speaker 1: in high school, and former child actor Brock Pierce from

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Speaker 1: the Mighty Dux flicks. Boys as young as thirteen, fourteen,

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Speaker 1: fifteen years old were invited into the Den's inner sanctum

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Speaker 1: for those parties. Among the Hollywood elite who partied there

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Speaker 1: and also invested in Den with the promise of meeting

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Speaker 1: the bright young stars of tomorrow were X Men director

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Speaker 1: Brian Singer, as well as legendary media mogul David Geffen.

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Speaker 1: So Den had a red hot moment in the spotlight

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Speaker 1: with those huge, huge investors, and at one point was

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Speaker 1: valued at more than one hundred million dollars. But pretty

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Speaker 1: soon the talk about what went on in that mansion

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Speaker 1: began to impact the business. Word was Colin's rector and

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Speaker 1: others were sexually assaulting those young teen boys. Finally, in

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Speaker 1: the summer of two thousand, a federal grand jury criminally

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Speaker 1: indicted him for transporting miners across state lines for sex

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Speaker 1: as human trafficking. Several young boys said that he had

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Speaker 1: plied them with drugs and threatened them with a gun

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Speaker 1: for refusing to have sex with him, and they said

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Speaker 1: that they were passed around at parties to powerful older

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Speaker 1: men like they were party favors. After his indictment, Colin's

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Speaker 1: Rector fled to Spain along with Shackley and Pierce, but

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Speaker 1: two years later they were nabbed by Interpol living in

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Speaker 1: the city of Marbea. Shacklei and Pierce weren't charged, but

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Speaker 1: Mark Collin's Rector was put in prison. Guns, eddies, and

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Speaker 1: child porn were found in the house. Mark fought extradition

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Speaker 1: for almost three years before returning to the US, where

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Speaker 1: he pleaded guilty. He had to register as a sex offender,

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Speaker 1: and he was sentenced to time served in that Spanish prison,

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Speaker 1: where he says he was tortured. A lot of folks

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Speaker 1: thought the sentence was way too light, but it effectively

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Speaker 1: ended his career At the time. He maintained he fled

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Speaker 1: from the US because he believed that David Geffen, his

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Speaker 1: investor and arguably one of the most powerful men in Hollywood,

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Speaker 1: wanted to destroy him. Geffen, of course denies all that

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, a US court gave Mark

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Speaker 1: special permission to go to the UK to get treatment

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Speaker 1: for a brain tumor. While there, he renounced his US

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Speaker 1: citizenship and has never come back to the United States.

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Speaker 1: From many years now, he's been living in a one

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Speaker 1: bedroom apartment in Antwerp, Belgium, quite a calmdown at the

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Speaker 1: age of sixty four. He now uses several names, including

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Speaker 1: Mark Collins and morgana On Phoenix says he tries to

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Speaker 1: create content of some sort as far as his cohorts.

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Speaker 1: While Chad Shackley now lives a very simple life in

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Speaker 1: his hometown of Bay City, Michigan, brock Pierce has had

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Speaker 1: a more colorful couple of decades. After separating himself from

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Speaker 1: Mark Collins, rector in Chad Shackley, he went on to

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Speaker 1: become an entrepreneur. In the mid two thousands, he was

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Speaker 1: semi connected to the late investment mogul and sexual predator

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein, but nothing nefarious turned up there. He's come

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Speaker 1: a long way since the Mighty Ducks and the Den, though,

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Speaker 1: after getting involved early in the cryptocurrency marketplace with Bitcoin,

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Speaker 1: it's now estimated he's worth two billion dollars. Not surprisingly,

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Speaker 1: he has little interest in talking about Mark Collins Rector.

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Speaker 1: Much like the Harvey Weinstein story and countless others we've

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Speaker 1: seen since the rise of the Me Too movement, the

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Speaker 1: story of Den highlights how predators can exploit Hollywood's allure

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Speaker 1: to abuse the most vulnerable. That's pretty heartbreaking. Sure. Hope

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Speaker 1: you're enjoying the Backstory with me, Patty Steele, and if

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Speaker 1: you would, I'd appreciate it if you would subscribe, And

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Speaker 1: also if you have a story you'd like me to

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Speaker 1: dig into and share, please dm me on Facebook at

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele or on Instagram at Real Patty Steele. I'm

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,

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Speaker 1: the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer

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Speaker 1: is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new

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Speaker 1: episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out

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Speaker 1: to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram

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Speaker 1: at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The

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Speaker 1: pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know