After a history in Variety in November he exposed the fact that a registered sex offender – and a noted cameraman – Adam Kimmel has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2007, the organization took action and removed him.
A confirmed Academy source for Variety that Kimmel is no longer a member. When asked about a comment, an Academy representative did not respond immediately.
Kimmel also appears to be no longer with the American Society of Cinematographers, an elite organization for cinematographers. An ASC spokesman has not returned Varietyinquiries about Kimmel’s status. But his name, which used to be listed among the organization’s members, is no longer on the ASC website. And in a list of ASC members, Kimmel’s name has an asterisk next to it, which means “withdrawn from membership”. On his IMDb page, under the title of curiosities, it says: “He was a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) from 2008 until his resignation in 2021.”
Kimmel was arrested in New York City in November 2003 – after having sex with a minor girl that summer – and pleaded guilty to third degree rape in February 2004. Two months later, he was sentenced to 10 days in prison. community service, 10 years of probation and 10 years on the record of sex offenders (it was changed to 20 years retroactively in 2006 due to a change in law across the state).
In an email to Variety Last November, Kimmel acknowledged his guilt, but called the charges “consensual sex with someone below the legal age of consent” – he was 43 when the girl was 15 and then turned 16.
After Kimmel’s conviction, he was the director of photography for “Capote” with director Bennett Miller, for which he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award. Kimmel’s previous credits included “The Ref” (1994), “Beautiful Girls” (1996) and “Jesus’ Son” (1999). He was invited to join the Academy in 2007, three years after he entered the sex offender register.
Several filmmakers who worked with Kimmel after his 2004 plea of guilt said Variety that he never revealed to them that he had been convicted of rape. Kimmel’s story illustrated how there is no scenario selection in Hollywood, nor in traditional institutions either.
In its original statement to Variety, the Academy wrote: “The Academy has a stated policy against abusive and indecent behavior and takes all matters involving harassment, aggression or misconduct very seriously. The current membership selection process is based on an honor system that relies on the integrity of potential members, their sponsors and branch committee members to disclose any disqualifying information. The Academy is reviewing the situation in accordance with its charter and will continue to review its membership selection process on a regular basis to ensure that it accurately reflects the Academy’s values.“
The 2004 conviction was not Kimmel’s only conflict with the law over an underage girl. In 2010, Kimmel, then 49, met a 15-year-old girl and her mother outside a post office in September 2009 – and he and the girl began to correspond. He was arrested on April 23, 2010 and charged with fourth-degree sexual assault, two counts of risk of injury and failure to register as a sex offender in Connecticut. In your email to Variety, Kimmel called these accusations “serious and lewd” and wrote: “unequivocally, I was innocent of these accusations”. He was, however, convicted of a Class D crime for failing to register as a sex offender, which resulted in the loss of his job as a cinematographer in the 2011 film “Moneyball”.
In the wake of the #MeToo calculation caused by the Harvey Weinstein investigations in the fall of 2017, the Academy established its first code of conduct the following year. Until Weinstein’s expulsion in October 2017, only one person had been expelled from the Academy: character actor Carmine Caridi was ousted for piracy reasons in 2004, after loaning video screens for his VHS consideration that ended up on the internet.
After the code was written in 2018, Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski were also removed. And now Kimmel has now joined the small group of men who were expelled from the Academy for their previous sexual crimes.