It has been a deep and dramatic fall from grace for ‘charismatic’ NCIS actor and Yale grad Gabriel Emerson Olds.
Wearing a drab orange uniform, he spends his days behind bars at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s North County Correctional Facility off Interstate 5, a maximum-security complex 35 miles north of the iconic Hollywood sign.
His cell is in stark contrast to the TV and film sets and glamorous red carpets that defined his life before his arrest in August last year when the 53-year-old was charged with 12 felony counts of rape, sodomy and other sexual offenses on six women from 2013 to 2023. He has pled not guilty.
However, over 20 former lovers are supporting Olds as he languishes in jail awaiting trial, praising him in glowing character letters with compliments including ‘such a gentle a** slapper’ and ‘the best sex I have ever had.’
Now, in an exclusive interview with Daily Mail, the fallen star’s attorney Leonard Levine insists explosive claims by the accusers are ‘revisionist history.’
He says the accusers had agreed to be choked by Olds during erotic sex-play.
‘His defense is that all he engaged in was consensual sexual conduct with the alleged victims as well as many other women who have come forward on his behalf,’ says Levine of his client.
Gabriel Olds, pictured in his booking photo taken in August last year, is charged with 12 felony counts of rape, sodomy and other sexual offenses on six women from 2013 to 2023. He has pled not guilty
Seasoned defense attorney Leonard Levine, who is representing Olds, tells Daily Mail prosecutors must ‘establish that the victim did not consent and that the perpetrator knew she was not consenting at the time he engaged in the act’
‘They’re claiming they didn’t consent, and he’s claiming they did consent and talked about it well in advance (and) both sides agreed this is what we want to do.’
Levine has hired noted sociologist and BDSM expert Dr. Elizabeth Sheff to provide insight and explain how so-called kinky sex practices – including erotic asphyxiation – have become more mainstream.
‘It’s far more common than I ever realized among today’s population,’ he says.
‘I’m just trying to educate those who have never heard of this and at first glance might think that choking is terrible – until they understand what it’s all about and how popular it is.’
Olds has also appeared on ‘Law & Order,’ ‘Charmed,’ ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ and in 2021 he won acclaim for his portrayal of televangelist Pat Robertson in the indie film ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye.’
His intense legal woes began in January 2023, when a 41-year-old reality TV producer applied for a restraining order against him.
Details of the request are included in a bail motion filed by Olds’ defense team and obtained by Daily Mail.
On her application, the woman noted, ‘He left marks on my neck and I got very sick and vomited after. My therapist said I have PTSD.
‘He began filming or photographing sex with me without my consent. We had sex and he began to choke me. I asked him to stop and he didn’t.
‘I tried getting out and I couldn’t. I blacked out. I think he slapped me to wake me up. I then got very sick and vomited.
‘I fell asleep and woke up to him standing next to the bed putting a condom on. I told him no and he got on bed on top of me and said he wanted to have fun.
‘I said no I don’t feel well and he tried opening my legs saying he’ll make me feel better. I said no and began yelling…and told him I’d vomit on him and then he stopped.’ Daily Mail is not naming the woman.
The bail motion also has a copy of a confidential settlement between Olds and the woman which meant he would pay her $2,700 medical costs without admitting wrongdoing.
According to the filing, she reported the incident to LAPD but the district attorney’s office declined to prosecute, citing lack of evidence.
She then looked for other alleged aggrieved sexual partners of Olds via a Facebook site called ‘Are We Dating the Same Guy?’
A woman who called Olds ‘charming and respectful,’ wrote a character letter to the judge supporting him which said, ‘We did engage in choking during sex and he always stopped when I prompted him to’
Olds appeared alongside Rose McGowan in the popular Charmed TV show
Lead attorney Levine (left) and co-counsel Jeremy Babich (right) are defending Olds in his sensational case. Levine says the claims against the actor are ‘revisionist history’
Det. Brent Hopkins, of LAPD’s Special Assault Section, told Daily Mail.com said of Olds, ‘I’m not surprised that he has people supporting him. He’s a charming guy, he’s very charismatic and has an impressive background’
Police sources confirm to Daily Mail that five additional women told police that Olds choked them during sex between 2013 and 2023.
Three of them told police he had strangled them to the point of unconsciousness and they begged him to stop.
In the defense’s bail motion, Levine acknowledges the ‘unique sexual conduct at issue,’ the first complainant who made the claims against Olds is referred to as Jane Doe 1 – JD1.
He writes in the filing, ‘the majority of the allegations involved consensual sexual activity until JD1 sought out other partners of Olds’ and persuaded them otherwise to bolster her allegations.’
And he accuses JD1 in the court document of launching a ‘crusade’ to bring down his client.
‘This is a woman who dated him for a long time and exchanged text messages and sexy photos,’ he tells Daily Mail.
Olds was in a ‘continuing relationship’ with JD1 before she made her claims, he adds. ‘This was not a one-night stand. There’s no question they were having a consensual relationship. And then it broke off.’
Of claims by JD1 against his client, Levine tells Daily Mail: ‘Whether this was revenge driven or fact based, we’ll find out.’
He asserts the woman did not contact police before seeking a restraining order.
‘She doesn’t go to the police as you would think you would do if you were a rape victim,’ he says. ‘She goes and files a temporary restraining order without going to the cops.’
The accused rapist appeared as Pat Robertson in the ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’
Part of Olds’ defense, says Levine, will be that he and JD1 continued to see each other after the alleged choking. Claims made by JD1 in the restraining order request, he adds, were ‘very inconsistent.’
‘She says he choked me or whatever, and it was forcible,’ Levine adds. ‘On the next page, she’s saying he was doing X, Y, and Z and when “I told him to stop, he stopped.” So it’s not consistent.’
He says ‘most, if not all,’ of the complaints by the six accusers – aged between 30 and 50 years old – were made some time after the alleged assaults occurred.
‘A lot of these are women who didn’t come forward until they read articles and actually were urged to come forward on Reddit and other internet sites.’
Levine, a former LA County prosecutor, also says that none of the six accusers were ‘one-time events’ and that they kept up contact with Olds after the alleged crimes occurred.
‘Why is it just now that these women are coming forward?’ asks Levine.
‘The problem is, in this type of situation, there are always going to be some women who look back and say, “He took advantage of me. I shouldn’t have been letting him choke me. Why did I do that?” And then it’s a short step from that saying I didn’t consent.
‘Well, then why did you go out with him in the beginning? Why did you keep seeing him?’
According to Levine, prosecutors must ‘establish that the victim did not consent and that the perpetrator knew she was not consenting at the time he engaged in the act.
‘In this case, where they’re dating and they’re trying something, the precise reason they’re engaging in it is because it’s supposed to enhance the sexual experience. So there’s a fine line there.’
Several ex-lovers of Olds penned emotional – often graphic – letters to Judge Cathryn Brougham, expressing their support of him in a bid to have his $3.5 million bail amount reduced. Their comments are contained in the bail motion.
‘He taught me about a world of intimacy which was beyond my experience,’ wrote one woman.
‘We would incorporate choking and other painful acts, and we frequently videotaped ourselves too,’ said another.
One lover told the judge: ‘It was the best sex I have ever had.’
Another woman – who called Olds ‘charming and respectful’ – added, ‘We did engage in choking during sex and he always stopped when I prompted him to.
‘Gabe is such a gentle soul who I believe doesn’t have it in him to harm another human.’
And yet another former lover wrote: ‘When he approached me about kink, he made me feel safe about exploring and knew I was nervous – he was incredibly gentle with his exploration with me.
‘In fact, he was such a gentle ass slapper I told him he could go harder. When he placed his hand around my neck, I felt safe and was safe.’
A woman who enjoyed a ‘situationship’ with Olds was with him the week prior to his arrest. ‘Gabriel is only turned on when the partner is into it and it’s 100% consensual,’ she said.
‘He only wants to try a kinky act because it turns you on and you want to do it.
‘It’s very trendy these days for women to want to be choked, spanked, slapped, have their hair pulled, be told what position to go into.
‘He is a lover. He would never hurt anyone during sex (kinky or vanilla) and I do not believe for one second that he would ever rape someone.’
A letter from another supporter noted, ‘We were both in agreement that we wanted to take choking to the point of losing consciousness, and thereby experience the euphoria that that can bring.
‘While BDSM has been gaining more mainstream acceptance, this choice of lifestyle remains relatively taboo…but I have found it to be mutually fulfilling when practiced with a receptive sexual partner.’
A friend who has known Olds since they met at Yale described him as a ‘gentle person whom I trust with my life and the life of my children.’
Levine believes that the MeToo movement has had a critical impact on sex abuse cases but adds, ‘Obviously, women lie as much as men lie, as much as anybody lies.’
‘Facts’ not just an ‘accusation’ should ‘determine whether someone’s guilty or not in a court of law.’
‘He is a lover,’ wrote one of Olds’ supporters. ‘He would never hurt anyone during sex (kinky or vanilla) and I do not believe for one second that he would ever rape someone.’ The actor is pictured on an episode of NCIS
The former public prosecutor is also busy defending Monica Sementilli, currently on trial for allegedly plotting the murder of her celebrity hair stylist husband Fabio. She pled not guilty to charges of murder with special circumstances and conspiracy.
Levine says if Olds’ case proceeds to trial there will be ‘many women who say he was wonderful, a gentleman, great lover…never had a problem. We’ve had at least 20 women come forward and want to help.’
He doesn’t dispute that his client has regularly engaged in various forms of kinky sex. ‘For much of his adult life, this was the rule, not the exception,’ he says.
‘This is the kind of sexual conduct he was engaging in, consensually, for years – and now all of a sudden he’s a mad rapist?’
Det. Brent Hopkins, of LAPD’s Special Assault Section, previously told Daily Mail that investigators have spent the months since Olds’ arrest retrieving data, ‘texts, emails and browser search details,’ from his cell phone and computers.
Some of the former lovers have attended court hearings, together with some of his critics and accusers, a scene Hopkins described as ‘unusual.’
As well as the six alleged victims, at least six ‘character witnesses’ have made similar claims against the former actor, explained Hopkins.
He said the case is ‘definitely unique, not like any other case that I’ve handled or we’ve seen for quite a while.
‘I’m not surprised that he has people supporting him. He’s a charming guy, he’s very charismatic and has an impressive background.
‘There are plenty of people who enjoy that lifestyle and as long as everyone’s consenting to it and talks about it before and after and are all on the same page, no problems at all.
‘The problem for him is that he did not always get consent and crossed that line from a relationship between two adults and the privacy of someone’s bedroom into something that became a crime and landed him in jail.’
Hopkins advises couples to know their comfort level for BDSM in the bedroom before similar scenarios arise.
One of Olds’ lovers wrote to Judge Cathryn Brougham, ‘When he approached me about kink, he made me feel safe about exploring and knew I was nervous – he was incredibly gentle with his exploration with me. In fact, he was such a gentle ass slapper I told him he could go harder. When he placed his hand around my neck, I felt safe and was safe.’
Olds and Steve Pieters attend ‘The Eyes Of Tammy Faye’ Los Angeles Special Screening on September 16, 2021. Olds portrayed a young Pat Robertson, who was a well known evangelical televangelist. The film went on to win two Oscars
‘If two people agree in advance, “Hey, we’re going to have sex and it’s okay for you to spank me or pull my hair or do whatever else” – if both people say, yes, that’s okay then that’s not a crime.’
‘Ideally, they’re going to get that established beforehand,’ he said.
‘Is it okay if I do this? Yes or no? And check in with the person ahead of time.
‘It’s not very romantic, not very passionate to sit down and discuss this thing ahead of time – but it’s also going to avoid a lot of the confusion and a lot of the fear that people have when they’re not consenting to it.’
During a brief pretrial hearing on March 21, with the defendant represented by co-counsel Jeremy Babich, Prosecutor Jeffrey Megee of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office revealed ‘four terabytes’ of data had been downloaded from Olds’ electronics.
Almost unrecognizable from his acting days, he had shaggy, unkempt hair and appeared to have lost weight while in custody.
He is being held on $3.5 million bail and if convicted faces a maximum sentence of 93 years to life in prison.
Levine says he doesn’t want Olds ‘rotting in jail’ and hopes the trial will take place over the summer.
His next court hearing is scheduled for April 17 at Airport Courthouse in Los Angeles.
