Between 2012-2016, PR Entertainment and Bass Camp Festival President Paul Reder allegedly leveraged his position to groom and abuse an anonymous plaintiff.
A lawsuit against Paul Reder alleges that the president of PR Entertainment, Bass Camp Festival, and other brands sex trafficked a minor and used his financial position to exploit the individual years into their adulthood in incidents between 2012-2016. Its defendants also include various individuals and entities who “knew, or should have known” of his behavior.
According to the complaint filed in a California district court, Reder met the unnamed boy on a dating app and was not deterred from engaging with him when he learned that he was 17 years old. Reder allegedly drove the plaintiff from Soda Springs, California to his home Lake Tahoe, Nevada — where the age of consent is 16 rather than 18 — and forcibly performed oral sex on him after giving him cannabis and alcohol.
The suit contends that this set into motion a pattern in which Reder groomed the individual, leveraging financial opportunities to coerce him into performing sexual acts. At Horizon Casino, the Lake Tahoe establishment where Reder is said to have employed the plaintiff after moving him into his home, staff members allegedly instructed him not to talk to anyone or stay in one place for too long because “it was obvious that Plaintiff was too young to be in a casino unattended.”
Reder allegedly demanded sexual favors in return for spending cash and car rides, promising to buy the plaintiff a cheap, used car for transportation but never following through. At one point, according to the complaint, he leveraged a “bondage debt” by telling a Casino Hotel employee that the plaintiff owed him $10,000. It further claims that he pressured the plaintiff to drop out of high school and turned him against his parents.
Starting in 2013, the plaintiff worked the box office at events such as Bass Camp Festival, Safe In Sound, and Winter Whiteout, per the lawsuit. Reder allegedly provided him 21+ wristbands and alcohol at events.
The plaintiff’s employment opportunity allegedly ended when Horizon Casino closed in spring 2014 to rebrand as Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Lake Tahoe. The suit claims that in the months that followed, they bounced between various living arrangements, eventually alternating between Reder’s home and an RV that Reder parked in front of a storage facility to save money.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff was instructed to keep the lights off after dark to avoid police contact. It alleges that he had to plug the RV into the facility and blew a circuit breaker every time he tried to use the heater, preventing him from using the microwave or stove.
In January 2015, the plaintiff allegedly landed a bank teller job with Wells Fargo through a family friend of Reder identified as Morgan. It argues that Morgan knew the sexual nature of their relationship but felt pressured to comply as Reder plied them with concert tickets, backstage passes, hotel rooms, and the like. The plaintiff allegedly suffered from PTSD symptoms due to how Reder treated him that cost him the job and created difficulties in future employment settings.
The suit claims that the plaintiff began selling box office tickets to Reder’s events and pocketing the money in order to try to gain financial independence from him. Reder allegedly caught him, wrongfully terminated his employment, and forced him to move out of his house, rendering the plaintiff homeless for two months.
Over the course of their relationship, the plaintiff allegedly contracted strep throat, sinus infections, and bladder infections that led to numerous hospitalizations as a result of their sexual activity. The complaint claims that this included the plaintiff being catheterized to avoid kidney failure as he was unable to urinate. It also says that he continues to suffer from PTSD, BDP, depression, and anxiety stemming from his mistreatment.
Numerous individuals, such as colleagues of Reder like Matthew Stegemiller and Nick Rogers, as well as Reder’s niece, Carolyn Weiner, are named as defendants in the suit for enabling his behavior to various degrees. For example, Weiner allegedly said to the plaintiff, “You’re not gonna get my uncle in trouble are you? Another boy tried to get him in trouble and we had to take care of him.”
The complaint, which was filed on August 9 by Derek Smith Law Group, invokes the Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act and Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act when substantiating its violations. It also alleges that the defendants committed sexual battery, sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. It seeks damages in an amount to be determined in future proceedings.
“We were recently made aware of an alleged incident from over a decade ago by a former employee,” wrote a spokesperson on behalf of Bass Camp Festival in an email to EDM Identity. “And while we will not comment on active litigation, we can say that we are preparing a full-fledged legal defense to vindicate all defendants on the merits.”