Aspiring Actors Got Scammed, City Says

A Los Angeles man has been accused of taking advantage of aspiring actors by offering them phony work vouchers he allegedly claimed would help them gain entry into the Screen Actors Guild, authorities announced Monday.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said Thyvronn Verlin Hill, 40, faced 14 charges: 10 for false advertising, two for petty theft and one each for failing to secure proper business registration and the unauthorized use of a union trademark. Hill remained at large late Monday, officials said.

Hill allegedly recruited actors to sit in a studio audience, which prosecutors said earned Hill from $7 to $20 a person from companies hired to fill seats for comedies and pilots. Authorities did not release the names of any of the shows, citing the ongoing investigation.

Hill then allegedly promised actors that if they agreed to sit through 10 tapings they were guaranteed a “SAG voucher” that could be used to help gain entry to the union as a “background actor,” more commonly called extras.

Vouchers are time cards given to background actors for each day they work on a union production. A person with three vouchers qualifies for a SAG card as a background actor. Other ways to earn a SAG card include having a principal role in a film, TV show or commercial covered by a union contract or through its sister unions, Actors Equity and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Authorities said Hill recruited nonunion actors by posting messages from the fictitious RJ Productions on craigslist.org, a popular website made up of community bulletin boards.

SAG President Melissa Gilbert condemned the exploitation, adding that SAG memberships “cannot be bought, sold or bartered.”

The city attorney’s office said the charges, filed last Wednesday, were the first involving an alleged voucher scam. They added that if Hill was convicted on all counts, he would face a jail term of as long as six years and nine months, along with $28,250 in fines.