Source: Letters to the Editor
By: Robert Rhine
The truth about Solace San Francisco and the Hollie Stevens Donation Suite at AEE – Who really is Laura Lasky and Solace San Francisco? Read this:
AEE begins August 16 in Las Vegas and there will be a special ‘Hollie Stevens donations suite’ at the Hard Rock Hotel. Great idea, right? But before you support fundraising efforts in Hollie Stevens name to raise money for a new charity called Solace San Francisco… Her mother (Juanita, brother James, sister-in-law Mae and the rest of her family) greatly urge you to you read the information below:
“Hollie Stevens was one of my best friends and worked with me at Girls and Corpses Magazine at over 70 events,” explains Robert Rhine, “I also used to take her to the AVN Awards, she worked my booths and we celebrated her birthdays in Las Vegas. We always had a blast. Then, last June, I slept by her bedside in the hospital as she lay dying of Cancer. If you wish to donate to a Cancer charity on behalf of my beautiful friend and business partner Hollie Stevens — her family and I implore you to do so… But not to Solace San Francisco.”
“Here are two link to donate to the American Cancer Society: www.cancer.org/involved/donate/donateonlinenow/index and the National Breast Cancer Fund: www.nationalbreastcancer.org/breast-cancer-donations There are many other wonderful choices as well.” Hollie Stevens (aka Tia Kidwell’s) family greatly appreciates your consideration in this sensitive matter.
The attached photo is of Hollie Stevens with her brother (James) and mother (Juanita) taken at home in Kansas City, Missouri, the Christmas before Hollie tragically passed away from brain cancer at 29. Hollie loved them both very much. This is the photo that Solace San Francisco doesn’t want you to see because it shows that Hollie and her family were still very much in touch.
[Photo linked to the right.]
Following the tragic death of my good friend Hollie (Tia) Stevens, I have been in contact with her brother (James) and mother (Juanita), in several lengthy telephone conversations to somehow try to help them and myself find out the truth as to why Hollie and her family were never able to have a moment of closure together and it now appears to all of us and other Kidwell family members that there were some very concerning actions by Laura Lasky and Eric Cash. I have been very disturbed by certain actions on both Laura’s and Eric’s part in dealing with Hollie and my only objective now is to bring the truth into the light and help her surviving family.
This information is the opinion of Hollie’s closest surviving family members and myself. You can make your own opinion after reading below. But this email is sent with the permission and approval of Hollie’s mother Juanita Kidwell, her brother James Kidwell and Juanita’s sister-in-law Mae Whiteside.
Who really is Laura Lasky and what is Solace SF? Laura Lasky should make it her job (as it says on her website to “offer balance, peace and hope”) to bring a family together at the end of someone’s life, so they can say their goodbyes, so they can have some closure, rather than being the one responsible for tearing a family apart. That is the opposite of what happened in this situation with Hollie’s family.
Hollie’s brother just wrote me, “The truth needs to be told.” I couldn’t agree more. So, here we go:
1) During one of my conversations with Hollie’s mother and brother, they told me they never said one bad word to Hollie about her being in the adult business when they found out. Bottom line, she was a daughter and a sister who was dying and thats ALL they cared about! James states, “None of what Tia was doing mattered to me. But she never got to hear that.”
Laura and Eric (we believe) lied to Hollie so she would become upset and block her family from coming to SF to see her. The motivation for Laura and Eric we believe was to retain legal control, estate control, Power of Attorney and positive press for themselves and Solace SF.
2) Laura told Hollie that her mother and brother went to the FBI which was a lie. Never happened. Here’s the truth: Hollie’s mother, Juanita, flew to SF to see Hollie the last weeks of her life and desperately tried to locate her. Finally, Juanita went to the SF police to see if they could help find out where Hollie was but by then Laura had completely turned Hollie off to her family. Laura did this by telling Hollie that her mother and brother had called her a ‘slut’ and a ‘whore,’ etc, when they found out she was in the adult business. I know this because Laura told me she the same thing.
As James explains it, “Laura would not give them any information to Juanita about Tia’s (Hollie’s) whereabouts. Juanita then went to Tia’s old address, and the bedroom she had rented in SF. A guy there would not tell her anything either. The only thing we knew is that people took her to Richmond somewhere to ‘get away from the city.'”
3) Eric spoke only once on the phone to Hollie’s brother and the first words out of his mouth to him, James said, were, “I would punch you in the face if I didn’t know how much your sister loved you.” This is a brother that Hollie Loved and told me over the six years I knew her that she stayed in touch with him her entire life. Who was Eric, who had known Hollie less than a year, to say this to James, her brother? And if Eric knew Hollie ‘loved’ her brother, why did he (and Laura) block James from going to the hospital?
We believe that Laura told Hollie that her brother and mother said horrible things about her to drive a wedge between them and gain control. Laura told me herself that James and Juanita had said these terrible things – and, yes, I bought it too. I mean, why did I have any reason to doubt Laura’s sincerity? Hollie bought it too and never spoke to her family again.
But the truth is, Hollie was not estranged from her mother Juanita. She continued to speak to her throughout her life. Hollie told me too that she stayed in contact with her mom and called her the day she found out she had breast cancer. So, why was Juanita banned at the end of Hollie’s life from seeing her? How cruel! Who are Eric and Laura to do this to Hollie’s mother and brother?!
James Kidwell adds, “I don’t know what was told to Tia. I’m sure the lies started because she (Laura) was the only person talking to us. We lost all contact for days. Eric and I talked only once by phone. That was when the “I would punch you in your face if I didn’t know how much your sister loved you” comment was made. He also told me his last name was Thorson (not Cash). I asked for the spelling and everything. I was nothing but nice to him, that night, in hopes that they would let my mother see her. But they wouldn’t.”
Can you imagine being a mother or brother and being prevented from seeing your own daughter to kiss her goodbye? The last few days when Hollie was dying, Laura told me Hollie cried out several times for her mother. Laura told me she said to her, “I’m right here baby.”
Hollie told me in the hospital that Eric had no money, bank account or credit cards and yet he now lives in an apartment he arranged for himself and Hollie. How else could Eric afford this apartment without using the money Hollie received through charitable donations? Eric makes his money, as Hollie told me, as a street performer and an occasional open night stand-up comic. These donations should not go to Eric or Laura (if they did) but to a charity in Hollie’s name. Where is the approximate $16,000 Hollie had left? Where did it go? There were no hospital bills, all was covered.
I felt something was up the first time I met Eric. I thought it was peculiar (since I have a wife that went through breast cancer myself) that Eric wasn’t in the hospital 24/7. That really upset me. When I stayed at UCSF hospital with Hollie he showed up for about two hours in three days while Hollie was getting brain radiation. I took her back and forth for her radiation treatments. When I finally spoke to Eric on the phone and asked him why he wasn’t with his “wife” in the hospital he said to me, “Don’t lecture me.” Oh, he did show up when Hollie told him on the phone from the hospital that I ordered a pizza. He ate for about an hour and left. I slept in Hollie’s hospital room for two nights. I kept waiting for Eric to tell me, ‘Don’t worry man, I got this, I’m staying the night.’ I guess he was busy.
And when Hollie was moved to Eric’s new apartment from the hospital, her friend Steven Leyba went over there and thought it was odd there as no food in the refrigerator, so he went marketing and bought food for Hollie and the popsicles she loved and needed (on his dime). Eric didn’t offer a penny.
Yes, Eric was there at the end holding Hollie’s hand (as he released to the press, Facebook and endless Twitters). Nevertheless, Hollie’s mother and brother should have been allowed to be there with their daughter at the end of her life. This was taken away from them by Laura and Eric – and was also taken away from Hollie. And that is something they can never ever get back.
All the family wants now are Hollie’s ashes sent to them, to bury her in the family plot. They want something of Hollie. But Laura and Eric are even withholding that from them. And then to even leave the mother and brother’s names out of Hollie’s obituary is disgraceful and disturbing. Laura emailed me that Hollie “wanted it that way.” But don’t forget, Hollie was told a lie that her mother and brother were disgusted by her adult career and called her horrible things. And who did Hollie hear that from…?
James Kidwell wants to add, “I think people should know that we didn’t even know about Tia’s death for 2 weeks and found out through a 3rd party offering their sympathy, even though Laura had our phone numbers. I think that is pure evil. Not finding out until 2 weeks after is very hard. This has destroyed my life. Our grandfather passed 2 weeks to the day before Tia. Our grandmother is dying under hospice care. Our father is gone. Our grandparents raised my sister and I while our parents worked. It’s just me and our mother and we are feeling very betrayed.”
By turning Hollie against her family, what did Laura and Eric have to gain? Was it control or positive press for Laura’s SF organization or perhaps Hollie’s remaining money from donations to her? You draw you own conclusion, as we have drawn ours.
The following are emails from James and others that shed more light on this sad betrayal:
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Email to Robert Rhine from James Kidwell:
Juanita (Hollie’s mother) told Laura she was going to hell for what she was doing when she was trying to find Tia. I don’t think they have any concept of right and wrong. Especially since they know Tia was making decisions on false pretenses. This is all about getting whatever is coming to them of Hollie’s
I don’t know what to do. I want Tia’s remains. Simply for closure. They were acting like they were open to giving us something. I think it is just an act. I don’t think it will happen. As much as I want to expose them, I want to see if they will do it. I’d rather see whatever she has be donated to a cancer research organization. I know she was getting govt. help at the end. I’ve been lied to so much that I don’t know what to believe. I was a very trusting person until recently. I feel everyone has a motive for what they do. Money is truly the root of all evil.
I’m sorry this is so long. I just want you to know where I am coming from. I can’t take too much more of this pain. The more I think of what Laura and Eric has lied to me about, the more angry I get. Laura is the reason I will never have peace in knowing that my sister knew I loved her. They lied to Tia about me. They have no idea what I’m capable of. I will fight back if I’m backed into a corner. They better remember, Tia and I were blood. They thought she was tough, they have no idea.
James
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Email sent to Laura Lasky from Juanita’s sister-in-law:
“I’m tired of the run around and whomever has Tia’s ashes better send them to her mother and fast. Maybe I will go back to where she worked at different employers. I don’t want to hear anymore crap – it’s Tia’s wishes. Tia dearly loved her brother and both you and Eric know it. And as for contact, you have spoke to him ONE Time! I can assure you I will have resolution for Juanita. She is like my own sister. Maybe I will start with Mr. Rhine who posted he agreed Tia’s family should have been listed in the obit. So, I want to hear that James has a complete copy of her obit. I have heard that you and Eric are responsible for Tia not seeing her mother. Tia is gone, and her mother and brother deserve to have her remains and any of her personal items. Eric has her Mom’s address. So I suggest you get on the phone and convince him to mail them to her Mom. Eric is a nobody – he has posted horrible comments about a dead woman and the “Love of his Life.” Tia never had a real love of her life since her dad. Eric is trying to “cash” in on Tia’s name. Pardon the pun. I haven’t figured out where you fit into this picture other than you run a non-profit organization. So somebody better come up with something fast. So please don’t try to scam me. It will not Work! Answers and Fast to her family!”
Mae
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Rhine’s email to Laura (after seeing Hollie’s Obit Laura wrote and posted in SF papers, purposely leaving out Hollie’s mother and brother’s names):
Hi Laura –
An obituary is part of a historical record. So after the person dies whatever relationship they had with their parents and family has no bearing. It’s just the facts. You shouldn’t ever omit the deceased parents or siblings for whatever the reason. They are her survivors. Lot’s of folks hate their relatives but that’s not a reason to leave it out of their obit that they had parents or siblings. It’s for her ancestors to have this public record. If I had been able to read the obit first I would have let you know that.
I also feel her mother and brother should be told about the memorial and invited.
Aren’t you a mother, Laura? Even if you were not in communication with your own children, wouldn’t you want to know if your child had died and be able to properly grieve at a memorial? Whatever their relationship, Tia’s mother lost her child and her brother lost a sister – a terrible loss.
No need to control these things after Tia’s gone.
Robert Rhine
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In conclusion:
It doesn’t matter how beautiful the memorial that Laura and Eric had in San Francisco because Hollie’s family was not invited and that is not beautiful… It’s flat out wrong. Hollie should have been able to have the comfort and love of her mother and brother in her final days. Laura and Eric took that away from Hollie.
Those of you receiving this email have know me for years. Some for a decade or more. You know I am a man of my word and I am a loyal friend who will fight for what’s right. Laura and Eric came in only for the last year of Hollie’s life. I knew Hollie for six years and over 70 events we did together. Decide for yourself who’s telling the truth.
The only good news is that through this I finally got to meet Hollie’s brother James Kidwell, a soft-spoken, salt-of-the earth type guy who is heartbroken over his sisters passing and lack of saying goodbye to her.
I was able to have closure with Hollie and it meant so very much to me. I wish the family had the same.
Hollie is with the angels now and the bottom line is we will all miss her terrible… most of all, her family.
Sincerely,
Juanita Kidwell, James Kidwell and Mae Whiteside
