Go to Page 2: Murder and Aftermath
UPDATE June 15, 2024New series “Deadly Influence – The Social Media Murders” – Akshaya Kubiak from our scene, airs on Episode 1. Watch now on Max and Investigation Discovery
JUSTICE FINALLY DEALT
Akshaya Kubiak had been offered ten years, but held out for a jury trial, thinking he could get off lightly by sweet-talking a jury, as if they were random fans of his Showtime show. He then changed his mind, and threw himself at the mercy of the judge, who gave him a full 20 years. Another charge of “mayhem” was added a few months ago, which added another significant amount of time.
In Greek tragedy, this is known as hamartia (the process of payback) brought on by the tragic flaw that is hubris (pride). Akshaya was one of the beautiful people and led a charmed life – looks, riches, popularity – all undone by his vanity and pride.
A side note: Akshaya and Herleen had started a business together, registered just a week before the shocking murder.
All in all, I am satisfied that justice was served. This is around what I predicted and I believe this is fair. Most close to this case that I have spoken with would have preferred 30-40 years, if not life. But the sense of satisfaction and relief is palpable.
As I’m finally going to sleep on this I just realized I don’t think he’s going to get out and seven or eight years it’s going to be 10 or 15 because her family for sure is going to be testifying at his parole hearing. All they need to do is pull out the autopsy photos.
Thank you everyone for sticking through this. Beware toxic masculinity, celebrity culture, and especially steroids. And, especially, don’t ever mix mushrooms and steroids. We now have two confirmed cases of this being a deadly combination. Don’t be stupid.
But think beyond not taking certain combinations of drugs.
Consider stopping taking them entirely.
Consider the cost of your selfish need to get high.
Consider the consequences of your choices on those loved ones around you.
Herleen’s family will never get their sister/daughter/aunt back. Their pain has been almost unbearable. Don’t add another casualty because you selfishly want to escape reality and responsibilities.
This concludes this case. There are no further updates below, other than this message.
I will circle back in the future if he gets released early.
Herleen Kaur Dulai
April 22, 1991 – July 16, 2020
Herleen was born in Santa Clara, California. “Kaur,” her middle name, means “princess” and is common to all Sikh women.
Facebook – Obituary Notice
I love the all-natural beauty of Herleen in the next photo even more than the model photos – her eyes, blindingly white smile, and effervescent personality shine through. The “Tapout” shirt is sort of a tragic premonition of her last moments – a plea for mercy from beyond the grave.
A model profile with her name lists her as having lived on Philadelphia Avenue in Philadelphia, and LinkedIn indicates her having attended Temple University 2010-2015.
Herleen’s Favorite Quotes from Pinterest
This is what hit me hardest, until I saw her friends’ video
Herleen moved to Las Vegas where she lost 40 pounds and became a fitness instructor with the nickname “40 Water.” In a poignant moment, she tearfully thanks her wonderful gym group at the A.C.E. Gym (Ability to Conquer Everything) for their support, and that she had had to deal with brain cancer and chemo. It is thus far unclear whether she was telling the truth about having cancer, and if she was, if she still had it when she was murdered, and whether it was terminal.
If you live in Las Vegas, consider joining A.C.E. gym. It is very obvious to me that they are good people and stand behind their own 110%. Support them.
How this story began, goals, and ground rules
How this page came to be
This last July, people kept sending me links about some murder, but I sat on this for days. I didn’t know him. I hate celebrities. Who cares? It sounded too tabloid.
But I realized I knew Kubiak. He had become a famous public figure on a show I didn’t watch, but someone pointed out to me that we actually knew each other back in the day when I was a corporate dropout and that we had many mutual Facebook friends.
I loved this trance music scene of a couple of thousand people, and I still do. Within this backdrop, I was many things – a website developer, a mailing list moderator (I still have all the thousands of emails), event promoter, general instigator, an amateur dabbler in shamanism.
We were an underground, outlaw element, so we had to police ourselves. I had an online sh*tlist where I ferreted out and publicly outed men (and they were always men) on a rotating basis who stole bags, beat up women, molested children, brought in bad drugs like heroin, and generally got out of control on alcohol or drugs. I lost teeth protecting what I loved. So by extension, what I am doing on this page is simply a continuation of what I did decades ago. Protect my flock from the wolves.
I also have much love for the Sikh community in America, having had Sikh friends and crossing paths with the 2012 Sikh temple shooter, or his bandmate, back in 2002.
So I decided to cover this, even though I am repulsed by prostitution, Las Vegas, and celebrity culture. I will present the facts as I understand them, and then give my honest take on this whole situation, in a non-tabloid, non-sensationalistic fashion that is as respectful as possible to Herleen and Akshaya.
In addition to presenting Akshaya as a wounded healer, in a manner of speaking I am also playing that “healer” role myself here, and dealing with an array of wild, primal, archetypal forces. And possibly like Akshaya, I pave this road with good intentions. Things can go wrong. So I will try to avoid hypocrisy and pride, and be as careful as possible.
Finally, I have a brother who is going through the long, slow freight train of lymphoma right now, so this story hits home.
Goals, in this order
1. Get to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (and discussion looking for the truth) This is the linchpin upon which all else rests, especially #2.
2. Seek justice for Herleen
3. Healing and closure for Herleen’s and Akshaya’s families and friends
4. Work to help prevent violence against women and ethnic minorities, and, if it turns out to be a wounded healer scenario, educate those in the psychedelic community of the real dangers of experimenting with powerful hallucinogens in uncontrolled situations without licensed personnel
5. Understanding, forgiveness, and rehabilitation for Akshaya
These goals can seem to work against each other in the short term, but long term, they are all completely in sync. Those who live in houses of cards can never truly heal. As the shamans would say, good, strong medicine tastes bad at first.
Important note about his family
I have been in contact with one of his family, and Herleen’s. To protect their privacy, God bless them, family, friends, non-celebrity coworkers or costars, and any girlfriends current or otherwise, or significant others will NOT be discussed here, ever. Or anything that they do or say in response to this crime. This extends to any discussion of his background and childhood, which would present a slippery slope. This will all be about Akshaya and Herleen, and no more. Most of this page right now is about Akshaya’s life between now and 15 years ago. More information may come to light about Herleen, with her family’s permission.
The Murderer: Akyasha Anthony-Dixit Kubiak AKA “Ash Armand“
The arrogance of pride, the pleasures of lust, and the poison of vain curiosity are the impulses of a soul that is dead.
– Saint Augustine
Facebook – FB Page – Instagram – Myspace – Youtube Channel – Gigolo Site (Old) – Entertainment Tonight Article – Arrest
“Akshaya”in Sanskrit means never-diminishing and is believed to bring good luck, prosperity and success – and considered auspicious for starting new ventures. It would have been kismet that he and Herleen start a new business.
Early Hippy Days
Alongside many other young traveling bohemians, back in the 2000s in New York, Akshaya Kubiak attended psytrance (psytrance is a style of electronic dance music) events,
including under the George Washington Bridge (a day party, when Texas fa*ggot/Squaremeat came from Finland on June 30, 2006), PSI – New Jersey Pine Barrens, and Gaian Mind at Four Quarters in Pennsylvania (all pictured below).
It must be stressed these were mostly daytime, legal-ish events, and not drugged out or sketchy at all. Bit of weed. Scattered beers. Few people probably tripping. Innocent stuff.
I have to stress this, lest his prosecutors delve into his past during sentencing and try to drudge up our little music scene as bad actors. We weren’t.
It was a wholesome, happy day. Akshaya was a carefree, happy-go-lucky guy. High fives for everybody!
More New York area psytrance listings from 2006 (opens in a new tab)
Gigolos
Many years passed, and in the intervening time, I pretty much forgot about him. He seems to have struggled to provide for his family, getting busted in an illegal weed operation in Florida.
Then he moved to Nevada, where things got pretty chaotic, but he found ways to profit from his looks. There have been wild, unfounded rumors of this period.
From 2011-2016 Kubiak became a gigolo with Cowboys4Angels in Las Vegas and appeared in 38 episodes of the Showtime “reality” show Gigolos under the stage name “Ash Armand.” According to the Daily Beast, it was at least partially fake and arranged for entertainment only.
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Gigolos Season 3: Episode 2 Clip – Fire Dancing
Gigolos Season 3: Episode 3 Clip – Riding
Gigolos Season 4: Episode 3 Clip – Caregiver
Gigolos Season 5: Episode 6 Clip – Dressed for the Part
Ash Armand's Prep For Gigolos season 6
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“Ash” was an innovator. He created his own new archetype of the kind, gentle gigolo that hooked up with the heavier, disabled, and/or otherwise lesser glamorous clients. Kubiak’s schtick was something J.P. Sears could have come up with – a sensitive, Shanti, sexual shaman.
In one episode, Kubiak, parroting a discredited theory promulgated in Marija Gimbutas‘ speaking of Indo-Europeans in The Civilization of the Goddess, talked about how highly enlightened societies had women in positions of power, but that they were susceptible to being overtaken by male-dominated militaries, and so those societies fell.
Which was ironic given what happened in 2020.
The only thing I will stress is that in the real world, male straight gigolos that cater exclusively to women are actually pretty uncommon, practically an urban legend that is mostly seen in Hollywood films and Showtime “reality” shows.
Data is sparse, anecdotes suggest an average part-timer would expect to make around $30,000 a year, although Kubiak was reportedly charging $20,000 a week.
Inevitably, super-rich gay men offer the most handsome of them astounding amounts, and it is very hard to conclude that most of them, already prostitutes in mind and soul, wouldn’t turn down that much money. Of course, this exposure to HIV would hurt their business, so it is in their best interest to keep it hush-hush.
Still, Kubiak’s celebrity may very well have driven his actual real-life gigolo business. It would be a badge of honor for some wealthy women to say they f*cked Ash Armand on Gigolos.
Youtube Channels
In 2014, Kubiak started the Swarrior Fitness channel on Youtube with a couple of videos.
A few years later, after Showtimes’ Gigolos show was canceled, in an apparent attempt to build his brand Kubiak launched AshArmand1, another youtube channel about sex. In my opinion, he apparently had entered a late Boogie Nights situation in his life, cutting off his hair, and looking more and more worn out. His weight started to fluctuate wildly, seemingly pointing to steroid use. But he was reportedly still able to charge $20,000 for a week with him, so money kept flowing. He lived a similar lifestyle to O.J. Simpson, but with a far more active sex life. His legacy assured, he had it all.
He had a couple of run-ins with the Vegas cops for driving drunk/recklessly, and went to jail for it.
The center wasn’t holding.
Kubiak narrowly avoided getting shot at the 2017 Istanbul New Year’s Eve mass shooting at the Reina nightclub. He was with a p*rn star who had to leave because she didn’t feel well, minutes before the shooting started. So his life was saved by a sick woman. Tragically, three years later, one might then conclude, considering that he said Herleen was sick, he surely did not return the favor to sick women. One would think that a brush with death this close would have encouraged him to clean up his act.
He also reportedly dabbled in p*rn and appeared on Vice’s slu*tever, “Happy Endings” in 2018.
It is apparent that with this hourlong interview that Kubiak is progressing into the PUA (Pickup Artist) market:
…which reminds me somewhat of Tom Cruise in Magnolia:
Kubiak, “Ash Armand,” had a devoted fanbase, both on this Facebook Page, which shows just suggestive photos of him in luxurious locales across the world, and also had a fan base on Instagram:
Around this time, Herleen Kaur Dulai, a young Sikh woman who had recently graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia, moved to Las Vegas. She joined ACE Gym and lost 40 pounds, and told her class in a video (see top of this page) that she was very thankful for her support there, and that she had undergone chemotherapy for brain cancer.
She had struck up a friendship and relationship with Akshaya. Her parents bought her a Corvette, which he drove.
Relationships are often unequal. Who had the upper hand?
They had known each other for six weeks.
The relationship of the two might have mirrored Kubiak’s schtick on “Gigolos:” the sensitive one who took care of the special needs women. With Showtime canceled, he was doing various side projects and an apparent relationship with Herleen, which, possibly coincidentally, was good for his brand. As the male body ages and hormones diminish, and a Swartzeneggar body would have been more difficult to maintain without chemical aids, and a graceful exit strategy from being a gigolo would have been to become a younger good looking male Dr. Ruth Westheimer. A sex expert. Herleen, who claimed she was suffering/recovering from brain cancer, may have been expecting more from this relationship than did Kubiak.
Or, it may have been the other way around. She had a black Corvette Grand Coup that her father had just bought her a month prior – he used it.
There is speculation that he was using her. He told her that his Indian mother would be happy for him to have an Indian girlfriend. She did not have a drug history, yet that night, after picking her up at the gym and driving back to his house, he convinced her to ingest psilocybin and MDMA, again, part of a reputed healing ritual, healing either her brain cancer or their relationship, one of them may have tried to break up with the other, or “create some space”(my quotes) between them, and one or both may have gotten got mad or even hysterical, and they got in a very one-sided fight.
On the night of June 15, 2020, he picked her up from her gym and drove him back to his house, where she took MDMA and psychedelic mushrooms.
