Sex Film Star Not Facing Charges, Reiner Says

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said Friday that his office is not pursuing charges against sex film star Traci Lords, even though she was underage when she made many of her films.

“Lords herself is not under investigation for committing any crimes,” Reiner told reporters.

Instead, Reiner said, he may ultimately press felony charges against the pornographic film makers who employed Lords, who made about 75 sexually explicit films and videos before she turned 18 last May.

“The thrust of the investigation is directed toward the pornographic film industry that exploited her,” Reiner said. “There are no charges that we’re considering (against Lords).”

Lords, whose real name is Nora Kuzma, was born in Steubenville, Ohio, on May 7, 1968. In 1982, after her parents divorced, her mother brought Nora and her three sisters to California and settled in Redondo Beach, TheTimes has learned. Nora attended Redondo Union High School for two years, leaving school as a sophomore.

Acquaintances said Kuzma, whom they described as “a cute and giggly sort of girl,” began posing for adult magazines while still in high school.

In July, 1984, sources said, her picture appeared in the adult magazine Velvet. The sources said that when they learned that Kuzma was underage, they called the district attorney’s office but an investigator said, “There isn’t anything we can do about it.”

A Reiner spokesman said it is not known if there is any record of such a call.

When asked about the pictures in Velvet, the sources said, Kuzma would say only that she had “modeling” jobs.

Later, she told friends she had been signed to do “an aerobic scene” in a movie, but she did not comment further.

A search warrant executed by prosecutors on her Redondo Beach apartment turned up a birth certificate, a state identification card and a passport all belonging to another woman. Reiner did not specifically comment on whether any charges would be pressed against Kuzma for carrying false identification.

In the search warrant, however, district attorney investigator Laurence A. Rooker said that using another person’s name to obtain a false birth certificate and driver’s license amounted to “the crimes of forgery and perjury, felonies. . . .”

Carrying a false passport is a federal felony punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a $2,000 fine. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office here declined to comment on whether the Kuzma case was under investigation.

Apparently Kuzma had been carrying false identification as early as her freshman year at Redondo Union High School, sources said. On one occasion, she used a false driver’s license to buy a cocktail in a South Bay restaurant, they said.

Reiner said the case first came to his attention two months ago, when an informant told the prosecutor’s office that Kuzma was acting in porno films even though she was underage. The matter, he said, was then turned over to juvenile investigators.

Reacting to comments by sex film makers that they were victimized by Kuzma using false identification, Reiner called such a defense “preposterous.”

“We’re all familiar with their high standards,” he said.

Reiner said he does not know how many pornographic film companies might be investigated and that he has no plans now to bring the case before the county grand jury.