Will Rollins, the Democratic challenger in a hotly contested Southern California congressional race, is leaning heavily on his prosecutorial record on the campaign trail. He is even using professional actors to play law enforcement officials in a campaign ad, the Washington Free Beacon found. The ad shows Rollins, a former prosecutor, hard at work in various law enforcement settings, chatting with a detective at a roadside crime scene, arguing before a judge in a courtroom, and conferring with officers in what appears to be a police workroom.
Rollins is running on his record as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California, where he claims he fought the Sinaloa cartel, MS-13, and ISIS. A series of recent Free Beacon reports found no evidence to back up many of his claims—and evidence that he exaggerated or embellished others.
"Will Rollins, a counterterrorism prosecutor, took on ISIS terrorists and went after the Sinaloa cartel to stop illegal drugs from crossing our border," a Rollins ad released in February states. It shows the candidate speaking in front of a judge and conversing with a cop.
The spot is intended to showcase Rollins's deep connection to law enforcement. But the cop and judge aren't real—they're C-list actors with long lists of cameos and credits, including on popular shows such as Grey's Anatomy and lesser-known flicks like the Chinese-produced teacher-student romance Ms. Swan, Show Me Love.
The revelation is the latest example of how Rollins is using misrepresentation, showmanship, and exaggeration to burnish his law enforcement record as he seeks to unseat longtime GOP incumbent Ken Calvert, whom Rollins has attacked for "failing to respect law enforcement."
The judge shown in Rollins's ad is the actor, dancer, and choreographer Jayson Wright. Following stints as a backup dancer for the likes of Pink and Justin Timberlake, Wright turned to acting. He played a "bar patron" in a 2022 episode of Grey's Anatomy, sipping whiskey by himself as the camera panned to Ellen Pompeo. Wright made a brief, nonspeaking appearance as a detective in Netflix's The Vince Staples Show, where he appeared emerging silently from his office in the background as main character Vince talked with two (also fake) cops.
Wright did secure a speaking role in Ms. Swan, Show Me Love, an online "micro-series" produced by Chinese-owned video streaming app ReelShort that depicts a forbidden romance between a new teacher, Ms. Swan, and a student at a prestigious private high school.
Wright plays a patron at a local bar where a scantily clad Ms. Swan works nights. When Ms. Swan delivers Wright's character a beer and asks if there's "anything else" she can get him, he responds, creepily, "It's possible…"
The cop Rollins huddles with in his ad, meanwhile, is Jeff Deglow, a 40-year-old Calgary, Alberta, native who moved to the United States as a college student "to pursue acting as a career."
Deglow got his start performing in a "Shakespearean show" in Arizona. He touts his "incredible handle on Shakespearean text," though he has lamented that he "always seem[s] to play the Fools."
In 2022, he played "Gus" in the online film Billie the Kid: Vampires of the Wild West, a Western-vampire crossover in which the "gun-slinging 'Miss Billie'" partners with the local sheriff to take down scores of the bloodsucking undead. A review of the movie on a vampire media blog gave it a "4 out of 10."
"This wasn't that bad," the review states. It did not mention Deglow's "Gus."
Deglow has had more success booking commercials, which can provide a lifeline to working actors. He has appeared in TV and digital ads for companies such as Samsung, T-Mobile, U-Haul, and Lenovo, according to his website. In a 2022 spot for do-it-yourself pest control company Self Control Pest, he plays a nerdy husband working to keep his wife away from a chiseled contractor who steals her attention while working outside.
Away from his commercial work, Deglow is best known for his acting in online videos produced by Dhar Mann Studios, a "content creation company" that releases straight-to-YouTube short films.
Founded by Dhar Mann, a former "ganjapreneur" who in 2013 pleaded no contest to five felony counts for defrauding the city of Oakland, the company is known, according to the New York Times, for its "openly click bait" titles and no-frills dialogue meant to cater to children and non-native English speakers. It boasts more than 23 million YouTube subscribers.
Deglow has appeared in at least four of the company's videos over the last year. His initial roles were underwhelming. In a 2023 video titled "BAKER's Life CHANGED In 24 Hours, What Happens Is Shocking," Deglow plays "Customer 7," one of many extras who stand in line at a pop-up bakery for a young girl with a chronic illness. In another video, titled "Woman CALLS COPS On POOR HOMELESS BOY, What Happens Next Is Shocking," Deglow plays a journalist who attends a mayoral candidate's press conference. He does not speak in either video.
That changed for Deglow earlier this month, when he landed a speaking role in the Dhar Mann Studios hit, "2 MEAN GIRLS Backstab BEST FRIEND." The video, which has more than 3.6 million views in less than a week, depicts a pair of high school girls who film their friend having a schizophrenic episode. Deglow plays the schizophrenic student's drama teacher, delivering riveting lines such as "Actors and thespians, lend me your ears: We have found our two leads."
Campaigns do often use actors in their ads, but it's typically to provide voiceover skills, or they're used for just their hands. Rollins's use of actors, showing their faces in specific roles, is unusual, even more so in that his ads don't contain disclosures.
Indeed, there appears to be no acknowledgment anywhere of the actors' roles. Wright and Deglow have not disclosed their work in the Rollins ad publicly—despite showcasing much of their output online, as is customary for working actors. Wright did not respond to a request for comment, while Deglow confirmed his participation in the ad but declined to comment further. Rollins's campaign did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Mvar Media, the Democratic advertising firm that Rollins has paid more than $180,000 for "ad production" and other services since May 2023.
Rollins lost narrowly to Calvert in 2022, and the pair's rematch is expected to be tight, particularly given that recent redistricting swapped red areas in California's Inland Empire for overwhelmingly liberal Palm Springs.
Liberal media outlet Slate has cited Rollins as proof that Democrats "are just fine running as cops," comparing the congressional hopeful to Vice President Kamala Harris, who is also running on her record as a former prosecutor.