The Facts According to Rolling Stone

This week's Rolling Stone article does make some new claims, but simultaneously avoids other topics of interest. Overall, the piece seems to be a game attempt at telling Sean Lockhart’s story, even if in so doing a few things get glossed over.

First, in with a collection of the new:

--Fresh details are provided to describe the summer of 2004 that saw Sean living with Kocis in Dallas. Sean claims he was alternately assigned menial tasks around the house, and compelled into three-ways with other twinks and Kocis.

--Porn actor Caleb Carter says that, before the murder, he once heard Grant Roy remark that perhaps what they needed was ‘a cleaner’ to end the dispute with Bryan Kocis. Carter took that to mean a hit-man. To that, Lockhart reportedly said, “Grant, don’t talk about things like that with people we barely know.”

--At a time when Grant and Sean were in a dispute with partner Lee Bergeron, Grant Roy is said to have driven up the alley behind Lee Bergeron’s house late one night, shouting threats. Bergeron reportedly increased security because of the incident.

--Sean says that his first impression of Harlow Cuadra (at Le Cirque) was that Cuadra was “silly and immature.”

--After the murder, Sean says he was so depressed and isolated that he contemplated suicide more than once.

--It was Grant Roy, not Sean Lockhart who wore a wire that day on Black’s Beach.

--Both Lockhart and Harlow say separately that they’re less than proud of their work in porn (and/or escorting), in sharp contrast to their public personae.

Now, the article leaves the reader with many questions, as well as curious about which facts were checked and which were taken at face value. In other words, a great deal seems glossed over.

To wit:

--Harlow Cuadra’s Navy background and the dashing circumstances of his separation from the service are presented only in a self-serving quote from Cuadra himself. One is left to wonder if the facts were verified.

--The incident wherein Sean Lockhart dropped his (under)age bomb on Cobra video is treated very cursorily in the article, without inquiry into what he hoped to accomplish in doing it. Whether Sean considered it his only chance to escape from Bryan Kocis’ influence, or whether he was after the destruction of Cobra Video, the article is strangely silent on the motivation behind the act.

--Sean Lockhart is characterized as being a ‘free agent’ in the wake of the settlement with Cobra, before Kocis’ death. We all know that’s not precisely true.

And finally,

--The circumstances of the decision by Sean and Grant to inform on Harlow and Joe— to contact police, to wear a wire, to entice the Virginia Beach duo into a confession— are entirely (and conspicuously) missing from the story.

All in all, then, the Rolling Stone story has its flaws and its seeming revelations... like any news story. So we can take it for what it’s worth.

-Both PC and KM contributed to this story.