ShortHand: Dahvie Vanity – Juggalo Enemy #1

[Music] Hello, bon evening. Bon week. Bon week. Welcome, Bianne Venue. Very good. To short-hand. Yep, don't know what short-hand is in French. A putty. [Laughs] Putty hand. [Laughs] Uh, uh, uh, what's the French for? I used a pom-dand. It pom. Ma. Ma. Ah. Putty ma. Welcome. [Laughs] Putty ma. [Laughs] Anyway, we don't have French stuff today for you on this week's short-hand. But we do have a disgusting YouTube man. Late one Sunday evening in June 2007. A 14-year-old girl, Sarah, not her own name, was sat alone in her bedroom listening to a Christian radio show where teens ring in and discuss their Christian problems. And Dawson McCallister, the host of said radio show, lent a sympathetic ear to these young Christians and he provided them with Christian advice. That night, Sarah, longtime listener, first time caller, decided to pick up the phone and share something on the air. Sarah told McCallister Dawson McCallister the radio host, a story of how she had been sexually assaulted in her own home just eight days before. The staff working on the show acted quickly and while Sarah was still on the line, they contacted the police. The following evening, officers arrived at Sarah's home in Pinellas County, Florida. She was a shy and introverted eighth grader who was regularly bullied at school and spent most of her time on the computer editing photos. So being questioned by police officers, terrified her. But Sarah knew she had to tell them what had happened to her. At the hands of a man she met on my space, named Darvie. This Darvie had contacted Sarah, saying he was a hairstylist living in Orlando and that he wanted to give the 14-year-old a new look. He said he'd even come to her house to dye her hair if she wanted. Sarah's mother is a single parent, working two jobs as a nurse. So one night, when she was out on a shift, Darvie paid Sarah a visit. That night, Sarah, who was 14 years old, don't forget, performed oral sex on Darvie. This was Sarah's first ever sexual experience. The 14-year-old burst into tears as she explained to the officers sat in her house how she'd started speaking with Darvie a few weeks before the night in question. She told them how Darvie would end their conversations by telling her how much he loved her. And she said she'd believed him then, and that she still did kind of now. Heart-breakingly, Sarah's main concern was that she was going to get Darvie in trouble. One of the officers, Captain Kurt Romanoski, a detective within the crimes against children's squad in Penella County, tracked down this Darvie character through a MySpace page entitled Darvie Elite Hair God. Hate him for everything. So MySpace though. Darvie's real name was Jesus David Torres, and he was 22 years old. So Captain Kurt phoned this Torres, and in quite an odd move, told Jesus David Torres that Sarah's mother wouldn't go after his arrest on the condition that he stopped contacting Sarah altogether. Torres told Captain Kurt that he wasn't aware that Sarah was just 40. He apologized and promised to cut off all contact. Now let's be clear what the law actually says about situations like this. What Torres did to Sarah falls under lute and lascivious battery, which means engaging or inciting a minor under 16 years of age to engage in any type of sexual activity or intentionally touching a child in a lustful manner. This we took from like Orlorida's description of it, it may very state to state, but this is what Florida says, and that's where they were. Now just to be clear, lute and lascivious battery is a second degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Good. Exactly, and it can be more than 15 years if that person already has like another charge or another conviction that links to it. That feels like the average amount of time that people kind of get for crimes like that. Absolutely. And claiming not to have been aware of the victim's age is most definitely not an admissible defense in Florida, just saying, I didn't know she was 14. That's not good enough. But for some reason, Captain Kurt and the police simply let Torres off the hook as though he'd been driving around with like a broken headlight or something. They're so like casual about it. They're so just want to make it go away. And again, we need to be clear, Captain Kurt wasn't just like a random officer beat cop who turned up that night. He works in the crimes against children and just to be clear, we are saying, Captain Kurt, not Captain Kurt. Yes, let's be clear. So however, this is what happened and for most of you, the name Derby Vanity is not one that is new. So you already know that despite Captain Kurt's stupid behaviour here, this definitely wasn't the end of the story. A few months after this incident, the Peter Philip hairdresser, Jesus Torres, started a band called "Blood on the Dance Floor". Die. A scene-kid electropop, Krunk Corps Group. It's so my space that it hurts me, physically, internally. If you want to know more about Krunk Corps, you just need to take yourself over to Urban Dictionary. It describes it as one of the worst genres ever conceived. That is hilarious though. I do want to understand what it actually is, Krunk Corps, according to Wikipedia, is a musical fusion genre, categorised by the combination of musical elements from Krunk, post-hard core, heavy metal, pop, electronic, and dance. Oh, and the genre often features streamed vocals, hip-hop beats, and sexually provocative lyrics. Oh, good. Everything and nothing at the same time. Yes, exactly. And Torres was naturally the front man of, said, Krunk Corps band, and he now has a stage name. Darby Vanity. He would dress in gothic clothes and indulge in flamboyant multi-colored spiky wigs and a lot of make-up. Blood on the Dance Floor's heavily auto-tuned songs touched on topics that they knew would strike a chord with the preteen my space-generation of the 2000s, so me. And those messages were, of course, fuck what your parents say, sex is cool, so is self-harm, and a skin's party is not a lame thing to do. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Skin's a TV show. Yes. Darby Vanity and Blood on the Dance Floor somehow managed to amass a following of almost two million children, and they toured the nation because of it. Their wrote songs about school shootings, Revenge Pawn, Murdering Women, The Classics. Great. And one of Darby's more inspired lyrics was, "I'll fuck you in the face and leave a nice taste." Wow. I don't want to be fucked up with fate. That sounds horrendous. I hate this guy. And despite the band claiming that all ages were welcome to their live shows, their performances were disturbingly sexual. He's really giving me, like, a less successful Ian Watkins vibe. Yeah. Like, that is exactly what it is. I'm just going to take a look at him. Oh, please do. Please do. Disgusting. In fact, let's all collectively as a group, Google Darby Vanity. Oh, God. Okay. What we're looking at is a cross between a failed Ian Watkins and a jugalow. Yes. Yes. So, the jugalow will not thank you for that because as we will come on to find out, they fucking hate Darby Vanity, but we'll come back to that later. If you do a Google and look him up, as I'm sure you all did, because you are obedient, you can look at videos of him dancing in his boxes on stage in front of an underage crowd, screaming, I just want to come on all your little titties tonight. As he squeezes his crotch. Disgusting. Yes. I'm uncomfortable. Let's move on. Let's move on. Unfortunately, we can't move on to anything that is not awful because this entire episode is about Mr. Darby Vanity. The two years after being let off the hook for assaulting a 14-year-old, Torres was right back on it. Blood on the dance floor were in Denver, Colorado for a show. When one of Torres's former bandmates, Garrett McLaughlin, spotted him alone in their tour bus with two teenage girls just before the group were about to go on stage. Halfway through the show, police actually turned up and arrested Torres after one of the girls reported him for having forced her to perform oral sex. But Torres was released just a few days later. According to a video that Torres posted at the time, the girl, quote, "had mental issues and had failed a rape kit so he was let go." One doesn't fail a rape kit. It's not a past or fail situation. God's sake. But, Torres, while saying these things about that girl, also hinted online that he'd come to an arrangement with her to keep quiet. Before adding, I always treat women with respect. Seems very contradictory because he's saying it never happened, because she, quote unquote, failed this rape kit. She also is mental and I treat women with respect, but I've also settled out of court with her so she stays quiet. Lots of messages there. Torres. Which one are you going with? Well, I can tell you which one, McLaughlin one was, he quit the band. I was like, "I want absolutely no part of this." Good for him, that must have been hard to do, because like to have two million followers. Back then. Back then, you know, it's not an easy thing to have achieved. We also know that people love to ride on the coattails of power and hide in plain sight, and like, "It doesn't have anything to do with me, I'm not the one raping teenager." So good for McLaughlin, for stepping out of the band. Step out, he did, and he was replaced by 17-year-old Jay von Monroe, who stayed with the band all the way up until 2016. At which point, he spoke out against the numerous times he had witnessed Darvi Vanity wandering off with underage fans. Jay von Monroe also happens to be HIV-positive, and accused Darvi Vanity of having forced him to go on tour without his medication. Why, yeah? It's just a control thing, because like, what has that got to do with anything? Other than the fact that somebody in your band needs those medication to stay alive and stay well, the only reason that you would do something like that is for control. Yeah. And as the band and Taurus' individual fame grew, his sexual crimes became a massive open secret just like Ian Watkins. And there were multiple online groups exposing him as a pedophile. And as a result, multiple venues cancelled blood on the dance floor shows. So by 2010, the allegations against Taurus were so widespread that he actually began addressing them in his song lyrics. And here are some of those examples. Look at me, I'm beautiful, not a suspect of rape. My name and reputation won't be the target of a slut. Call me a pedophile, underage is not my style. What? The fuck is going on? And despite all of this, despite him openly addressing these allegations in his lyrics in very provocative ways, Taurus continued to be able to pray on more victims, with textbook predatory tactics. His legion of fans were predominantly unsurprisingly teenage girls. And these teenage girls were ones who felt like outcasts. So Taurus knew exactly how to manipulate them. In 2010, Blood on the Dancefloor collaborated and toured with famous YouTuber and singer Jeffrey Star. After the tour, Star tweeted, "I'm going to speak the truth till I die. I saw Blood on the Dancefloor dervy vanity bring underage girls to his hotel rooms and do sexual things. 100% illegal. Being on tour with that childfucker has made me see the truth. I regret ever doing a song with that pig, "RIP, because you'll never be me." Just to remind you, that was a tweet by Jeffrey Star in 2010 after he had been on tour with them. Jeffrey Star has since deleted those very passionate tweets and strangely has gone on to make another song with Blood on the Dancefloor just four years later. But we'll come back to him later. I am not a Jeffrey Star stan. I barely know who he is and what I have seen are not interested. You don't want to cross him, though. In 2014, Megan, a 16-year-old from Colorado, who'd been a huge fan of Blood on the Dancefloor since the age of just 11, received some deams from the King of the Emonances, who by this stage in the game was 28. Dervy vanity told Megan that he was coming to Denver for a show in July and wanted to take her out on a date. Par rhythm texted for months leading up to that show and eventually they went to the cinema together to watch X-Men, during which Torres kissed Megan on the lips. It was her first kiss. I hate that. I hate that for her. Later that evening, Megan went home and fell asleep, but was woken up at 3am by a phone call from Torres. And they spoke to each other for about an hour. And after that, Torres told Megan that her reception was really bad and he asked her to go outside. Like a horror film. And when she did, to her shock, Torres was parked down the street in a fucking van. As Megan approached, Torres suddenly grabbed her by the wrists and told her to delete all of their messages before leading her into the back of the van. He then told her, "I can't wait to fuck your teen mouth." And like pretty much every other story from his victims, Megan alleged that Torres then violently forced her to perform oral sex on him. And Megan told the Huffington Post in an interview that she has since given that Torres forced her head into his crotch so violently. They ripped out clumps of her hair and left her mouth bleeding. And he wasn't done with her. He continued to regularly call and text Teenage Megan for months afterwards, acting as though the sexual assault had never happened. Which meant Megan started to second guess herself, as though perhaps she'd overreacted and what had happened to her was just completely normal. In 2015, Torres offered to fly Megan out to San Diego and she said yes. Megan didn't know, Torres had only booked her a one-way ticket. He knew full well that Megan had no job and no money and couldn't afford to get herself home without him. Megan has said in interviews since that Torres explained to her that she'd have to perform sexual favors for him if she wanted him to pay for her flight home. And every time she did that, she would make $50 towards the cost of a flight ticket. Jesus fucking Christ, it's horrific, truly. So when the Huffington Post published their damning article against Avivanity with dozens of testimonies and interviews with Torres' victims in 2019, Torres remained silent and just posted cat pictures and selfies to his Instagram. His fanbase, however, did not stay silent. Thousands of young teenage girls leapt to his defence and even began attacking his accusers and former bandmates using the hashtag, "Davivanity is innocent." They sent his accusers death threats and messages telling them to kill themselves. One of his supporters even tweeted, "If any of this shit was real, Davy would be in prison." Oh, how naive and stupid and twisted all of you are. Jesus Christ, that is so disgusting. Yeah. And it brings us on quite nicely to how incompetent and irresponsible the police were when they were handling the accusations against Torres for almost two decades. If Captain Kurt had done his job all the way back in 2007 when the 14-year-old Sarah had told him what Torres had done to have, then perhaps dozens of young girls and women could have been spared a lifetime of trauma. But the statute of limitations had passed in Sarah's case, but Florida lawmakers have since passed a bill allowing prosecutors to file sexual battery charges at any time in cases where survivors are minus at the time of the assaults. Pinellas County police have said that although Torres apologized for what he did to Sarah over the phone, this couldn't be interpreted as an official admission of guilt, because it was over the phone and not in a formal setting. This is the thing. He says when Captain Kurt calls him and says this is what this girl is saying, her mum won't press charges if you stop contacting her. He doesn't say that never happened, that's all completely bollocks. He just says I didn't know she was 14, which as we've already said is not a defense against this kind of accusation. But now they're saying that him saying that he was sorry and he didn't know she was 14 is not even an admission that that happened, even though it very obviously is. And having said that, the police said that they didn't really feel the need to bring Torres in for proper questioning. And they also added that Sarah was pretty reluctant to cooperate in the quote-unquote investigation. Oh my god. This is such a common misconception because victims of crime do not need to cooperate with the police and prosecutors in order for accused criminals to be arrested and charged. Yes, of course, testimony from victims can be crucial in getting a conviction, but it's up to the officers to decide whether to arrest people and down to prosecutors to press charges. It's not up to like a 14-year-old child who's been the victim of a sexual assault to decide whether that case gets progressed or not. And in cases of sexual assault against minors, it's far more straightforward than in other sexual assault cases where consent is the main issue because obviously minors cannot legally consent to sex. So that he said she said was their consent or was there not is not even a part of the conversation. He did it and he admitted to it by saying that he was sorry he didn't know she was 14. A former sex crimes prosecutor has even called Captain Kurt's decision not to arrest charge and prosecute Torres as nothing short of incredibly lazy, sloppy and irresponsible police work. Today, Jesus David Torres is 36. He lives with his parents in Florida and is still yet to face any legal consequences for his abuse of behaviour. That is unbelievable because I like many people knew this case like from a distance, been in the news on and off multiple times. I did not realise he was just out and free. Yeah, me either. It's even more unbelievable when you consider that since 2007, over 20 women and underage girls have come forward with allegations of sexual assault at the hands of Jesus Torres. Those are just the ones who've come forward. The real number is extremely likely to be much higher. Yet, Torres still has no criminal record. His name doesn't appear on a single sex offender registry and he's still releasing music and selling merch. Although all of Torres's former bandmates have now abandoned him, including his wife, his rebranded himself twice in the last couple of years as a solo artist. First as Kawaii Monster, and most recently as the most vivid nightmare. You're a 36 year old who lives with your parents. And like, get out of here. We let emo go now. Yes, like it we should. Send it off. We had the time. We did the side fringe. We did it. We've all done it. Big tick there. Let's just let it go. Let's not revive that. Let's not. No, I really, I really hope not. You know what? I'm actually upset enough at the return of the low-rise gene. I don't need to be further upset. No. Let's move forward. So as the years passed, Torres is her rendous campaign of abuse, kind of faded from the zeitgeist. That is, until 2019, when metal sucks.net, and the Huffington Post published articles on his crime, complete like we said with interviews from survivors. That year Spotify announced that it had removed all of blood on the dancefloor's music from their streaming service, stating that Torres has conduct violated their guidelines on prohibited content. Yes, pretty much because he's saying how he wants to come on the little titties of teenage children. I will. But we checked. And although blood on the dancefloor is indeed no longer on Spotify, Derby Vanity's music, under Kauai Monster and the most vivid nightmare, is still available on Spotify. Don't go listen to it. And I probably don't need to tell you that because collectively, they both barely get about a thousand monthly plays, which in Spotify money is probably a penny. But they are still there. So what was next in the Derby Vanity saga? Well, this is when Chris Hanson, the former host of NBC's To Catch a Predator, turned YouTuber, also began releasing a series of videos about Derby Vanity in 2020. Hanson announced that he's going to investigate Derby Vanity and wants to put him behind bars. And then on his YouTube channel, Hanson has interviewed a number of people who witnessed Torres' crimes firsthand, as well as Torres' survivors. And coming back to Jeffrey Star, well, he has received quite a lot of backlash after his interview with Hanson, where he claimed that he was unaware of Torres' abuse in 2010, despite having made a series of serious tweets calling him a childfucker at the time. So you can't retrospectively speckle up your reputation on this. No. Although it is something he has quite good at and has done many times. And we weren't lying about the jugalos. Hanson also interviewed the insane clown posse who have made Torres jugalos enemy number one. And have called for jugalos everywhere to beat Derby down. So they've they've fat with him. They've fat with him. You know what, I don't hate it, I'm not mad at it. But even still, that hasn't really been any news about Torres since 2020. That being an article from Insider claiming that the FBI were now involved in his capture. When we were in Michigan on tour, there was like an additional bunch of fego in the fridge on top of the rocket air. And we were talking to the audience and the VIP bit and I was like, yeah, we've got loads of that stuff that jugalos drink. Oh, yes, that is happened. I wasn't groaning at that. I was groaning at something I've just googled imaged and I'm going to end today's episode on this. Okay. Maybe we'll put a link to this picture in the show notes so you can all share in this video. Is it a before and after? It is no. It is a picture of him in bed kind of like meant to make you feel like POV like you're in bed with him. Gross. And firstly, he's got black sheets. Oh, hideous. Yep. So that's it guys. I hope you were all sufficiently horrified by that terrible disgusting story and the fact that that man is still free and wandering this earth. Yeah. Look at that image. It's horrible. And he is truly the greatest nightmare or whatever the fuck equals himself. Bye. Bye.