Navy reviews decorated SEAL who moonlights as porn actor
CORONADO, San Diego County — The Navy is investigating a decorated SEAL who moonlights as a porn actor.
The Naval Special Warfare Command wants to know whether Chief Special Warfare Officer Joseph Schmidt III properly obtained permission from his commanders for outside work and whether they condoned his acting career, the San Diego UnionTribune reported.
“There are very clear regulations which govern outside employment ... as well as prohibitions on behavior that is discrediting to the service,” said Capt. Jason Salata, a SEALs spokesman.
Schmidt, 42, has spent 23 years in the military and holds numerous medals, including a citation of valor for combat overseas. He has appeared in recruiting campaigns, even serving as the face of the SEAL program on its website, the Union-Tribune said.
He has appeared under the name Jay Voom in at least 29 sex films over seven years with titles such as “Apple Smashing Lap Dance” to “Strippers Come Home Horny from the Club,” the paper said.
Many feature his wife, porn star Jewels Jade.
Schmidt declined to comment to the newspaper, but his wife said many of his fellow SEALs at the Coronado base in Southern California watched the videos online.
“They knew about it at work,” Jade said. “He got called in, and they said, ‘Look, keep it on the low, don’t mention the SEAL name and blah, blah, blah.’ ”
“He was always pretty open about it with the command,” she said. “I mean, honestly, all of his buddies knew about it. Everybody knew about it.”
Jade first appeared in porn films in 2001, but she left the industry by 2003 to become a wife and mother and help run a real estate firm the couple founded in 2005 while Schmidt was assigned to Virginia. The business foundered, and the couple filed for bankruptcy after running up almost $2 million in debt, the UnionTribune said.
As business losses deepened, Jade turned to stripping to make ends meet and then returned to making porn films.
“It’s helped our family. It got us out of a lot of financial issues we were going through,” Jade said. “I could take care of the child. I could try to get us out of financial debt.”
Schmidt was transferred to Coronado in 2009. Jade said she recruited her husband as an unpaid performer to cut the costs of making films for her website and film-distribution service.