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7/9/01

Seymore Butts Obscenity Trial Postponed Until After Yom Kippur

I attended the obscenity trial of Seymore Butts today in downtown Los Angeles. It was postponed until October 15, after the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Seymore got busted for the first widely publicized fisting scene (1998's Tampa Tushy Fest) in an American porno in over 20 years. A 1980 Los Angeles City Attorney's Office memo to the industry listed fisting as one of the seven deadly sins. Prosecutor Deborah L. Sanchez remembers the list with the acronym "CURBFPH."

C - Children
U - Urination
R - Rape
B - Bestiality
F - Fisting
H - Homocide with hardcore sex
P - Excessive pain with sex

You can apparently still order Tampa Tushy Fest at places like XXX-imports.com, from which I took this:

Seymore is despondent over the loss of Alisha, and many women try to, ah, arouse him from his depression. Most exciting for us are the efforts of Bridgette Kerkove and Kylie Ireland. In addition to some gaping ass work, and dildo-stuffing, Bridgette and Kylie anally fist each other, at the same time! Order it now for $35, shipping included.

The Buzz On the Newsgroups said:

"Just saw Tampa Tushy Fest by Seymore and Chloe gets double fisted my Alisha Klass Alisha Klass gets fisted then Chloe puts one in her ass and Alisha tries to fist herself. Unbelievable I think Seymore pushed the envelope across the table."

"It has one helluva hot scene for those who are able to see or get it! Chloe...incredible! One shows Alisha getting both hands past the wrists into Chloe's twat, Chloe was sitting on her butt, torso raised, and she was diggin' it..... The other showed Chloe in the same position, but with a big dildo up her ass and Alisha with one hand in Chloe's cunt. Egomaniac Seymour had to somewhat ruin it, by having his hand and finger manipulating the dildo in Chloe's butt."

"Alisha's best vid IMHO, was Tampa Tushy Fest #1 (the uncut version) where her and Chloe melted down my VCR with their fisting each other."

I parked over two miles away Monday morning, just off Olympic and Figueroa, and grabbed my space in a $5 parking lot. The lot at the courthouse cost $14 for the day.

Wearing my synagogue suit and fancy black shoes, I wore off much leather walking over two miles in 40 minutes to the courthouse at 210 W. Temple Street. I passed through the elaborate security and finally made my way to the Division 40 court on the fifth floor at 8:45 AM. I recognized nobody.

I wandered in and out of the court, then sat on a bench and read the Herman Wouk novel Youngblood Hawke.

"Mr. Ford," a familiar voice called out five minutes later. I looked up and saw Seymore Butts aka Adam Glasser, 37 years old, wearing a suit and sandles. I followed him into the court and we two Jews were about the only white folks waiting for trial. Everybody else was black or hispanic or asian.

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    Roger Diamond talks with Frontline's Corey Ford

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    Seymore Butts

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    Seymore Butts

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    Roger Diamond


    Image:0107095
    Roger Diamond

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    Seymore Butts

Heather Barron writes: "Seymore looks really sickly in those photos on your site today. What's up with that?"

We wander out again and run into a two man crew (producer Jim Gilmore and assistant Corey Ford) from the PBS documentary-style show Frontline. I vividly remember their 1983 report on gambling's influence on pro football. Almost 20 years later, that's still the highest rating show the program's ever aired.

Scott writes: "geez,Luke-let no one question your sincerity to the Jewish faith-NOBODY but a REAL JEW would walk two miles to save $9 bucks! FRONTLINE also did a great show on the Russian mafia's invasion of hockey and the incredible DEATH OF A PORN STAR documentary about Shauna Grant."

Glasser's 58-year old attorney Roger Diamond shows up. A nice Jewish boy who graduated UCLA Las School in 1966, and married shortly after, Diamond tried his first obscenity case in 1969. He represented Walter "Frenchy" Bagnall in the 1980 MiPorn bust and Rick Nathan of Tao Productions in a 1985 obscenity case. The feds initially tried Tao Productions in three jurisdictions around th country, Salt Lake City, Buffalo and Little Rock, Arkansas.

In the 1980s, Diamond defended Sterling Austor, a San Fernando Valley porn store, for its 8mm movies which included Plunge One, which features a man with his arm up to his elbow in another man's ass.

In 1993, Diamond initially defended Mickey Fine aka Herbert Feinberg, who recently called me from jail. He won't finish his sentence until the year 2032.

Diamond was barred from defending Fine on a conflict of interest angle.

Now Diamond is defending John Lynch, who holds sex parties at a private residence in the Valley. The police say that the home is not properly zoned to license as a sex club. Diamond says it is just a private residence, not a sex club, where adults do consensual things to each other.

Roger remembers how Patrick Livingston's 1983 arrest for shoplifting devastated the feds MiPorn cases. Livingstone was one of two federal agents who went undercover in the industry from 1977-79.

Diamond, Glasser and the Frontline crew keep referring to this as Los Angeles's first obscenity trial in eight years.

Diamond and Glasser sport similarly curly unruly short hair. Seymore says his hair is naturally curly. He gets out of the shower in the morning, adds some gel, and off he goes.

Our first judge Monday is Patricia Schnegg but she delays assigning a court to the case until the prosecutor arrives.

Deputy City Attorney Deborah L. Sanchez was supposed to show at 8AM but doesn't make it until 9:30 AM. She's a big woman, over 200 pounds, hispanic and amiable. She brings with her two gorgeous latina law students at Loyola Marymount who are interning with her over the summer and two Los Angeles Police Department porn squad detectives Steven M. Takes---a and Kyle Lewison.

Takes---a should be a familiar name to pornographers. He's been on the LAPD's Organized Crime and Vice Division Pornography Unit since 1985. He pulled the sting on Reuben Gottesman and Steve Orenstein in 1990, ordering illegal Traci Lords tapes. Takes---a runs the LAPD's porn squad. He's a powerful muscular asian man of few words. Steve and Kyle have the tough chiselled wholesome look you expect in police officers. They walk into court carrying a box of evidence.

What most surprises me today is how much of business is carried on personally between the prosecutors and the defense. They banter back and forth all day in a cordial tone. Even Seymore and the prosecutor and the detectives banter back and forth. I thought these guys would all hate each other and only fix upon the other an icy stare.

When I first talk with Deborah, she lights up with a big smile. She's read my web site for years. l-keford.com was the favorite page of her previous supervisor. LA's former City Attorney Jim Hahn, Deborah's past big boss, is now Los Angeles's mayor. He is thought to have conservative Christian views of pornography and may initiate a crackdown. The new city attorney is Rocky Delgadillo.

Deborah seems conversant with all the porn gossip sites out there, from GeneRossExtreme.com to AVN.com.

Sanchez and the detectives correct our supposition that this is LA's first obscenity bust in eight years. They say there have been many. They just have't gone to trial. Porners have pled guilty to obscenity.

Orange County's Mother Productions recently pled guilty to a charge of obscenity for the tape Liquid Gold Nectar which featured urination and fisting. Mother Productions also voluntarily brought master tapes of six of its other urination tapes to the LAPD to be destroyed.

Around 10:30AM, Judge Schnegg assigns us to Court Division 47 on the seventh floor. We all pile out of the courtroom and gather in a tight circle. Diamond opens up his box of goodies to show the prosecutor his defense exhibits.

The prosecutor and detectives show concern that we should not examine the smut in public view. There might be children around. The defense are much less concerned and they start producing hardcore videos, AVN magazines, a fist dildo, last week's New York Times article on the French film Rape Me, other articles, and "scholarly" books on anal and vaginal fisting.

Seymore on the New York Times article: "This new French film shows the most graphic and violent rape scenes you've ever seen."

Diamond presents a tape of the AVN 2000 Awards where the tape in question, Tampa Tushy Fest, won an award (as it also did at the XRCO).

As Diamond finishes presenting the prosecutor with the box of hardcore tapes, Deborah Sanchez makes a revealing remark that shows she reads GeneRossExtreme.com: "Are any of those tapes distributed by Extreme Associates?"

Last week on Gene's site, Extreme owner Rob Black claimed that Seymore Butts was going to point the police in Blacks' direction as a way of escaping an obscenity conviction. Extreme and Gene have been riding Seymore unmercifully.

Seymore Butts: "No."

Detective Lewison: "These are just from other companies?"

Seymore: "Yep."

Diamond presents to Sanchez an 8mm copy of Plunge One.

Roger: "This is a movie that I defended in this building, and won, 20 years ago, called 'Plunge One.' This actually shows the guy's hand, up to the elbow, going into the other guy. This was tried by the LA City Attorney's office, Mr. Lawrence Bauer, your predecessor."

Deborah: "I prosecuted a film similar to that was sent from San Francisco."

Roger: "I haven't even seen it since the trial."

Seymore to Deborah: "Do you keep track of what is going on in the industry as far as from the web site perspective? Or why else would you ask about the Extreme product?"

Deborah: "No, because your attorney is talking about comparability."

Seymore: "What does that have to do with Extreme?"

Deborah: "If there are comparable films out there..."

Seymore to Luke: "You understand that I didn't say anything... She brought up Extreme Associates."

Roger: "This is Adult Video News. And what they do, is they review these movies. And we have, I told you, witnesses coming. The publisher [Paul Fishbein] and an editor of this magazine to testify that they reviewed this movie and they also gave it an award.

"And this is a fisting movie called 'The Fist, The Whole Fist, And Nothing But The Fist.'"

Deborah: "Who distributes that?"

It comes from Patrick Collins Elegant Angel. It's the only other fisting movie they can present as evidence. If they could find more fisting movies, then it would make it more likely that their fisting movie Tampa Tushy Fest did not violate community standards.

Roger: "Here is an article in last week's Los Angeles Times. Playboy is buying hardcore channels. Evidence of what you can get on an ordinary TV station."

Deborah: "You're not going to get this [fisting] on an ordinary TV station."

Seymore: "You're going to get four fingers, you mean?"

Mr. Butts can't see the difference between inserting four and eight fingers in an orifice and inserting a whole fist.

Roger: "Here is stuff from the internet on female ejaculation."

Seymore: "We'll probably have somebody from Liberated Christians come in and talk about that."

Deborah: "We can look at these later, depending on what the court decides."

We all, defendants, prosecutor, detectives and media, go up the elevator together trading stories. The gorgeous interns have shy smiles. The opposing attorneys act as if they're engaged in an interesting chess match. The detective's give away little in their expressions. The only one not enjoying himself is the defendent Adam Glasser who repeatedly mutters that the case is "bulls---."

During a break in the legal action, Adam tells his attorney that the case is over. A settlement has been reached. In exchange for dropping the charges against him, prosecutor Deborah Sanchez will star in some hefty latina porn videos for him, doing vaginal and anal fisting.

I tell Mr. Butts to not corrupt the two beautiful latina law students. He gives a wicked smile.

Diamond says our new judge, whitehaired Laurie D. Zelon, has no experience with obscenity cases. But with her sharp questions and comments over the rest of the day, you wouldn't know it. The two attorneys go into a private conference with the judge.

Gilmore, Glasser, Takes---a and I trade stories and opinions. Adam's not afraid to go directly after the detectives and the prosecutor.

I spoke briefly with Takes---a in 1996 but I could never get permission from the LAPD's press office to do an interview with him.

Roger Diamond says Deborah, Seymore and company: "What motivated the police to file charges may have been the fisting, but what's admissable [for evidence] is the comparable material if it shows the other activities in the movie [aside from fisting]. Because the jury may see, the fisting is ok. It is between two men and is consenting. But we didn't like the other part. And for something to be found obscene, the whole thing must be found obscene, not just a part. The jury is not given the choice of what part of the movie to focus on because the jury instructions say 'Consider as a whole.'

"I don't think it is fair to require us to put on comparable material limited to a particular scene that might've caused them the problem."

Deborah: "But it is the fisting that you touted..."

Seymore: "Touted by what?"

Deborah: "On your advertisements."

Seymore: "If you look on the box, you will never find the word 'fisting.'"

Deborah: "On your internet advertising."

Seymore: "That's the only place you can find it."

Roger: "If the judge rules that comparables are not allowed at all, then the trial could proceed [today].

"This guy [Steve Takes---a] is apparently their expert witness. And he's not available after Wednesday. So she says to the judge, if we allow this comparable material in [as evidence], I'm going to need a long time to go over it with my witness. Fine, but I have scheduling problems. I have cases backing up. Plus I'm going to be out of the country in Australia for a couple of weeks.

"The judge has no experience in obscenity cases. I told her, when we come back to this in a couple of months, maybe she can educate herself in these issues. They are tricky subtle issues. She has no knowledge of them. She has no background.

"It's an interesting legal issue - does the comparable material [have to be fisting] have to relate exactly to the material that they don't like given the fact that the law and the jury instructions says the jury has to consider the whole thing."

A few years ago, I spoke with Chicago vice squad leader Tom Bohling who said that because the federal Clinton administration had no interest in prosecuting obscenity, local law enforcement has also abandoned the beat. But LA's cops say that they take no direction from the feds. They claim no change in approach since the new Bush administration.

Seymore tells Luke: "Remember when we showed them the box and Deborah asked, 'Are those movies from Extreme Associates?' And I say, 'No, why would you ask if they're Extreme movies?' And you could see her backtrack. She expected a box full of movies from Extreme Associates. Obviously they are keeping track of what is going on, not only on your web site, but on the AVN web site and on the Gene Ross web site as well. Does it look like there's any cooperation going on between us and them?"

Luke: "No."

Seymore: "Those undercover officers. I've seen them before. I recognize them. I remember having conversation, especially with the asian man.

"I just thinking it is interesting that the word 'Extreme' came out of the supervising attorney's mouth before any of mentioned it. I wasn't even going to mention that name. I'm glad you were there."

Luke: "And I had my tape recording running."

Seymore: "It goes to show that they [Los Angeles law enforcement] are a lot more on the ball than people think. So when Rob Black rants about chunks of s--- coming out of people's asses and all that kind of stuff, the people who are reading it are not only fans of the industry but the city attorney, the vice office squad, the obscenity squad, they're all reading it.

"They [law enforcement] bought the movie off the web site. And on the web site, I think it has the word 'fisting' in it. I've done several movies with fisting. The others are Alisha [Klass] doing it to herself. I don't know if they consider that obscene. I don't know where they join the line.

"But touting? It's not on the box. You can't find a picture of that on the box. You can't find a press release that we did that says, 'Hey, this movie has fisting. That's why you need to buy it.' That's the opposite way we did it. We didn't put any kind of reference to fisting on the box because we didn't want people to think that we were trying to sell it for the shock value. It just happened in the movie, not planned, that I decided to leave in because it seemed very erotic to me. And the girls obviously enjoyed themselves."

I remember when Alisha Klass hosted the 1999 AVN Awards in Las Vegas and kept referring to how wonderful it felt to have Chloe's fist up her ass. I sat at the table with Russ Hampshire and I saw how upset she got with Alisha's crude remarks. The next year, Alisha told Russ "to shut up, you old drunk."

Luke: "Russ's mom got up and walked out."

Seymore: "That's so funny how she could draw the line. His mother walks about because a girl is talking about a fist up her ass meanwhile there's a comedian on ten minutes earlier talking about the most outrageously crude things I've ever heard. There are dirtier words than 'f---' and 'fist.'"

I listen in as Seymore and his attorney discuss his defense during the hour lunch break from 12:30-1:30 PM.

Seymore: "Why do we have a rubber fist? It's obviously not something that people hang on their mantles. This is used as a sex toy. Somebody's buying it."

Roger: "Their argument is that obscenity goes to the way that sex is depicted, not the way it is practiced. No matter what goes on in a private bedroom, unless it is depicted..."

Seymore: "We have a video with somebody using a rubber fist."

Roger: "I don't want the judge to limit us in terms of what we can show [for defence]."

Seymore: "We also have an actress who says that she shot this stuff many times for other people. For her, the only way she can really get off for real is fisting."

Luke: "Do other just use it for their European versions?"

Seymore: "Yes."

Roger: "If we had any doubts [as to what caused the obscenity bust], whether it was the anal to oral sex... We now know clearly that they're after the fisting. It's clear what their strategy is going to be. They have two basic witnesses and a movie. To isolate a 25-minute section of a two hour movie and calling it obscene, I think they will be banging their heads against the wall."

Seymore says there's a ten minute difference between the two versions of Tampa Tushy Fest he's distributed. "I don't think the actual fisting, where you have every finger in, lasts more than ten minutes. Everything else is the same."

Ken Wood, former AVN managing editor stops by the court room for giggles. After a couple of months of vacation, he starts law school in September. Freelance writer and former Marketplace reporter Adam Davidson stops by for a few hours. Both are pale smart Jews, verbally agile, with triangular heads.

The cops and latina prosecutorial team are not jewish. The bailiff is asian. The judge seems Jewish. Seymore's attorney Diamond tells the court he can't work over Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year which falls in September in the Western calendar.

We almost have enough Jews for a minyan to daven mincha [afternoon prayers].

Judge Laurie D. Zelon has an amiable manner. I'm intrigued by how well everybody seems to get along. Only Seymore the defendant seems to carry a grudge. For everyone else, it's just a game.

Judge Zelon says from her bench that both parties agree that most of the video in question shows standard hardcore porn but there are particular practices that are not normative.

The judge and Diamond argue over comparability - how close the evidence (mainly hardcore videotapes) must match Tampa Tushy Fest. Does a tape need to show fisting to be valid evidence of community acceptance of fisting in hardcore tapes?

Prosecutor Sanchez says she needs more time to view the tapes the defense wants to submit as evidence. Sanchez describes Tampa Tushy Fest as building to a crescendo of fisting while Diamond downplays the significance of fisting to the movie.

Seymore repeatedly interrupts his attorney with arguments in his behalf. Seymore seems stunned he has to be in court to answer such "bulls--- charges." At times Diamond listens to Seymore's arguments and at times Diamond shushes him.

Sanchez says they did not bust Mr. Butts arbitrarily. They received a complaint about the tape and investigated.

To move the process along, Diamond offers to Sanchez to give up all the movies in the box as evidence and only use one movie - a Wicked tape of the 2000 AVN Awards. But Glasser overrules the offer. He wants to submit numerous movies showing four and eight finger insertion.

Diamond and Glasser tell Sanchez that their including Glasser's 70-year old book-keeper mother in the case is a big mistake. "She's never even seen a [porn] movie," says Glasser.

Outside in the corridor, while we discuss whether fisting is obscene, two hispanic Spanish-speaking mothers tend to their kids. One little girl looks over at the box of pornographic evidence. Seymore points her out and Diamond hurries over to move the box.

Roger: "This is a fascinating chess match."

Seymore: "No it isn't. It's bulls---. What's the difference between four fingers and a thumb? Look." He holds out his hand. "The thumb is smaller.

"You [Luke] have been on sets many times where they've done eight finger insertion."

The judge turned down Frontline's request to videotape these pretrial discussions. The trial is now set for October 15.

Robert H. Rimmer wrote in his 1984 book "The X-Rated Videotape Guide":

"Today, most adult filmmakers do not produce films that transgress a 1980 memorandum from the Los Angeles City Attorney's office. The memorandum pinpointed makers of those films and tapes subject to arrest and prosecution. They included scenes of bestiality and masturbation of animals; so-called snuff films, in which the actress is supposedly murdered in her final orgasm (probably none of these actually exist); and films or tapes showing sex with minors.

"The police may also try to censor films on tape that show urination (golden showers), defecation (Marquis de Sade style), or films showing pain or sadomasochistic abuse. However, as you will discover in the filmography, there are many bondage-and-discipline films available on videotape. A few tapes even offer "fist f---ing," in which an arm, foot or toe is inserted into a vagina; one such sequence appears in the original tapes of Candystripers, which were confiscated in a raid by the Los Angeles Police Department in March 1979. If you buy a videotape of Candystripers today, the scene has been eliminated.

"Areas I have labeled "Deviational Kinky" in the filmography (such as anal sex, double insertions, orgies and various combinations of group sex) are no longer subject to police raids."

From Adam Glasser's Prosecutor Deborah L. Sanchez

Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney Deborah L. Sanchez writes Luke: "Hi, I read article today on your web site. I wanted to let you know that the obscenity convictions I told you about were NOT lesser charges. They were distribution of obscenity convictions. Rarely have the charges been reduced to something else. Your readers may want to know that.

"Also, the Mother Productions tapes returned to LAPD, only involved the master tapes. It wasn't hundreds. It was only 5-6 masters. Thank you."

Deborah Sanchez appears around 40 years of age and has about ten years experience working for the Los Angeles City Attorney. She now heads the "Special Enforcement" division and works closely with detectives from the LAPD's Organized Crime and Vice Division. She's successfully prosecuted several pornographers over the past few years for distributing obscenity. Any of the seven deadly sins are likely to bring prosecution from Sanchez.

Don't let her smile and amiable ways fool you - this woman knows how to convict aberrant pornographers. Sanchez, like her peers, believes that it is not at all clear that any hardcore tapes are necessarily legal. It's just that her office, so far, is only prosecuting porners who step over the line into urination, fisting, defecation, rape and similar deviant material. Her office knows all about Rob Black and Extreme Associates and they are biding their time before they bust him. When they do, they know Rob will be on the evening news constantly making his case. They know Rob wants to fight. I'm sure his turn is coming soon.

With all the skeletons in former mayor Richard Riordan's closet, including his purported connections to scandalous figures, it was no surprise that Riordan left the sex industry alone. Mayor Hahn, with conservative Christian values on porn, should be a different story. The LA Times hasn't assigned two reporters to the porn beat, for the first time ever, because they think things are going to be quiet over the next few months.

From GeneRossExtreme.com:

Voltaire Jones writes: You guys should back off this anti-Glasser stuff. If you read what happened in court Monday you would know that Glasser is not rolling over, and he's not sending people to Extreme. All of your site speaks to your own paranoia about Glasser somehow pointing LA Vice to your products. And by all accounts he hasn't even mentioned your company at all. And by all accounts LA Vice is well aware of generossextreme.com and all of Extreme's products in any case.

I think Glasser deserves some credit for not rolling over. As stated in the Luke F-rd article, this is not the first case prosecuted in 8 years, it is instead the first case that has gone to court in 8 years. Everyone else rolled over. So give him some credit, and stand behind him until you have proof positive that he has somehow acted the way you are afraid he might act, possibly a projection of the way Black would act if caught in the same situation.

Gene sez: Yeah, and we know some of the things that happened in court Monday because a little birdy came back to this office and told us about it. When Glasser brought in a box of tapes, the prosecutors asked if those were Extreme tapes as if they were expecting them. Wouldn't that question seem a bit odd to you. Someone in Glasser's inner circle ratted out that his strategy was going to be one of pointing the finger of guilt at Extreme. We've merely made it very difficult for him to do so. Regardless, he will beat the rap. Ain't no way you're gonna get any kind of obscenity conviction in LA on straight porn, especially if Cincinnati finds a gay tape to be not obscene. Everyone involved in prosecuting Glasser should hang their heads in shame. Especially the Free Speech Coalition which continues its peculiar non-involvement with the affairs of this industry.

Voltaire writes Gene: Very odd that Vice would ask Glasser about Extreme. The take on that by Ford was that the Vice dept is reading l-keford.com and generossextreme.com and is not as ignorant as we all guessed. I guess we are supposed to think (based on their quotes in LF's article) that they are blase civil servants who attack porners only because the public demands it. But it's hard for the general public, or at least the significant portion of the general public that consumes porn, to believe that the Vice people aren't a bunch of prudish schoolmarms that want to put people in jail because Seymour's girls didn't keep a thumb on the outside. (From GeneRossExtreme.com)

From Tod-Hunter.com:

I was going through Luke's site (of course I read Luke's site, and everybody else's. Don't you?) And I missed the importance of this entirely until Tom over at AVN Online pointed it out. Read this:

"Deputy City Attorney Deborah L. Sanchez was supposed to show at 8AM but doesn't make it until 9:30 AM. ... When I first talk with Deborah, she lights up with a big smile. She's read my web site for years. l-keford.com was the home page for her previous supervisor. Her big boss, Jim Hahn, is now Los Angeles's mayor. The new city attorney is Rocky Delgadillo. Deborah seems conversant with all the porn gossip sites out there, from GeneRossExtreme.com to AVN.com. Sanchez and the detectives correct our supposition that this is LA's first obscenity bust in eight years. They say there have been many. They just haven't gone to trial. Porners have pled guilty to lesser charges."

Tod Hunter writes: "This woman is a city attorney. She recognized Luke, she keeps up on all the porn sites, and her last supervisor was using Luke as a homepage. I thought "Yeah, yeah," but it was Tom who pointed out that the law enforcement community is reading the sites: if somebody blows off about how they had this 15-year-old girl and they d.p.'d her with Coke bottles and you can see it in the new Atrocities Volume 37 - THE AUTHORITIES WILL KNOW ABOUT IT. Like I said, let's be careful out there." (Tod-Hunter.com)

Luke says: Unlike Tod-Hunter.com and AVN.com and other industry web sites, I have no concerns about the health of the industry. I report and opine and you decide what happens to the industry. I don't care about the porno industry. If law enforcement reads my site, then I feel honored.

Deborah Sanchez emails Luke at 6:24 PM Tuesday: "Hi again, I've been busy and away, so I am sorry for this late response. To answer the questions: I can tell you that we don't "monitor" any sites. We just occassionally look at the sites that have adult industry news. No, we don't "monitor" or look at porn sites. Your site was bookmarked on the former supervisor's computer, but it was not a "homepage.""

Mark Kernes writes for AVN.com: "The major fight was whether or not we could offer comparable materials," explained Diamond, in an exclusive interview with AVN.com. "The judge ruled in our favor. The city attorney argued that the Heller case, which I won - that was my case, People v. Heller, 1979 - if you can believe this, the city attorney said that was an outdated case. I said, 'It's not been overruled, and therefore never been disapproved.' And I said, 'Also, it was my case, so it couldn't be that outdated; I'm still alive.' So the judge ruled in my favor. Then the judge said, 'Now that we've won the battle to get comparable materials in, the question still remains as to what's comparable. And that's a very complicated issue as to what's comparable to what is being charged.'

"The city attorney takes the position that only fisting is comparable," Diamond continued. "The idea now will be to show how silly this distinction is; would eight fingers be the same as fisting, or does the thumb make the difference?"

"The city attorney said, 'Well, in view of that [decision on the motion], we're not prepared to go forward on comparable materials because they were just given to us today. We don't know whether it's comparable or not; we haven't had a chance to look at these movies,'" Diamond recounted. "I said, 'Well, trust me, it is, because they have repeated acts, same thing.' And they said, 'But it doesn't have fisting in it.' I said, 'Well, that doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be exactly the same to be comparable.' And they said that what they were really upset about was the fisting scenes, as opposed to the anal. And I said, 'But a jury isn't asked to make a finding as to particular parts of a movie; they're just given the general question about whether a movie is obscene or not, and under the obscenity law, the entire movie is considered as a whole. You don't break it down into parts. So the jury may very well look at the movie, Tampa Tushy Fest, and conclude, subjectively to itself, that the fisting is okay but they don't like the anal. So if we're not allowed to put in evidence of anal comparable materials, then what would prevent the jury from making an erroneous assumption as to what was being charged with being obscene, in light of the fact that the movie has to be considered as a whole?' So we basically gave them exhibits and argued the point." (Tod-Hunter.com)

7/12/01

Salon.com Covers Porno

Here are some excerpts from the piece:

Sexpert Tristan Taormino, after all, announced last spring in her Village Voice sex column that fisting has gone mainstream. "Fisting is not just for muff-divers anymore," she decreed. There have been other fisting films made since, including Chloe's unmistakably titled "The Fist, the Whole Fist, and Nothing But the Fist," from Elegant Angel.

"You think they'd go to the scene where the nun is raped in the wheelchair and then thrown in the swimming pool," Butts says darkly, referring to a film by a rival producer.

"This is a crackdown," proclaims criminal defense attorney Jeffrey Douglas, who works regularly with the adult-movie industry and sits on the ACLU's Southern California board of directors. As Douglas sees it, the LAPD was just lying in wait for the likes of Ashcroft, hoping that with Bush in office more federal monies will become available for obscenity prosecutions.

The LAPD vice squad, believes Douglas, is hoping extreme porn will lead to easy convictions, resulting in bigger budgets and providing them sought-after respect. "If all you do all day long is watch X-rated movies and search porn Web sites," Douglas says scornfully, "it's harder to get status amongst your colleagues."

Regardless, pornographers pushing the obscenity envelope didn't foresee that this day would come, says Douglas. "I've been at meetings and events where, if you're talking to a 25-year-old porn-maker about federal prosecutions for obscenity, you might as well be talking about the Spanish-Mexican War," he says ruefully.