Alexander Burton, the actor who played Pyro in the first X-Men film, was a plaintiff in a 2000 sexual abuse lawsuit against Marc Collins-Rector, a registered sex offender and former executive of Digital Entertainment Network, or DEN, who allegedly threw parties at his Encino, Calif., mansion where Bryan Singer and other men who worked in the entertainment industry provided drugs and alcohol to teenage boys and sexually abused and threatened them. Singer has denied the allegations.
Attorney Jacob Arash Shahbaz, who represented the plaintiffs, told BuzzFeed Friday that the 2000 case, which was filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court July of that year, was over alleged sexual abuse and was settled confidentially. But according to the case docket obtained by BuzzFeed, the three were awarded $2,000,030 in a judgment and $1 million in accrued interest in 2011. Shahbaz did not immediately respond to questions what those judgments were for, whether they were paid by the defendant, and whether they were separate from the settlement.
One of the other plaintiffs in the 2000 suit was Michael Egan, who this week filed suit against Singer in a Hawaii federal court alleging Singer sexually abused him on multiple occasions. Egan was 17 years old at the time of the 2000 suit. The other defendant in the suit was Brock Pierce, a then-18-year-old DEN executive who also starred in the Mighty Ducks films and First Kid. Pierce did not immediately respond to request for comment over social media. Amy Alderfer, who was an attorney for Collins-Rector and Pierce said she could not comment on the case.
Burton and a third plaintiff, Mark Ryan, were DEN employees, according to a 2000 Los Angeles Times article. Wednesday's suit noted Egan was also a DEN employee. According to the LA Times, Burton alleged Collins-Rector threatened him with death before sex, and Ryan alleged Collins-Rector drugged him without his knowledge and sexually abused him while he was unconscious.
Burton acted in no other films or projects before or since X-Men, according to IMDb. His role in the film was a brief cameo. He allegedly got the role after "a hot tub session at a Hollywood party," according to a 2005 New York Post story (not online).
Wednesday's suit alleges that Singer offered roles for movies, including X-Men films, while he was with parties where alleged sexual abuse of teenage boys occurred. The suit details an instance where Collins-Rector and a friend allegedly told Egan the adult men at the party "controlled Hollywood" and could make or destroy the boys' careers depending on whether or not they kept the adult men happy.
Singer's publicist Simon Halls did not respond to multiple requests for comment.