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From the early '70s onwards, David helped his father avoid paying taxes by setting up offshore banking accounts in places like Zurich, Switzerland. "Unfortunately," says a source close to David, "David felt a family obligation to help his father. Reuben used attorneys to set-up these accounts so David claims he thought what he did was legal." In 1975, Reuben set David up as the head of the sex toy division of his empire - Doc Johnson. David married one of his father's ex-girlfriends, and dabbled in drugs. Reuben fired him. David drifted to San Francisco and the two didn't communicate for several years. Then David met a devout Catholic who helped him put his life together. They married and had three children. (What Wild Ecstasy by John Heidenry) A source who knows David says: "David told his father, in early 1978, that he no longer wanted to be his bag man and ceased running to Switzerland. Since David could no longer stand Reuben's overbearing business style, David gave him a one year notice to quit at the beginning of 1980 and after canvassing for jobs, David moved out to San Francisco in Jan. of 1981. David worked for Pacific Western Dist., the company that marketed the product called "Rush", then, a big product in the gay community. "David subsequently divorced his wife and gave her everything he had. David was broke but happy. He started a magazine pack distributing called Profit Pak and with his connections in the business, David was able to procure merchandise on credit and created a successful company. These were adult magazines like Playboy, not comic books. David's wife was and is a very stabilizing factor in his life. David never ceased communication with his father, sometimes talking with him every day. After David's marriage to my current wife, Reuben gave him an opportunity to manage some retail stores in SF that were owned by Parliament News at the time. This gave David a stronger base and he was able to grow financially. David worked his ass off, sometimes working 14 hour days to accomplish this." During the 1980s, David worked with veteran San Diego pornographer Joel Kaminsky, a brother of Sturman lieutenant Melvin Kaminsky who legally changed his name as a young man to Melvin Kamins. In 1985, the U.S. Justice Department brought a 16-count indictment against David, Reuben and four associates for cheating on taxes. Eventually Reuben was sentenced to ten years in prison and David to four. He served two. "The government was willing to drop the charges on David if Reuben would plead guilty," said a source close to David Sturman in 1998. "There was no legal strategy in their trial. Their best lawyer Paul Cambria was separated from them at the beginning. His client, Mel Kamins, only received probation. "At this point Reuben was sliding into Dementia caused by Alzheimers." David presides over GVA West in San Francisco, a semi or completely autonomous part of the dominant American porn distributor General Video of America. David's tentacles extend across the world's porn trade. Many of David's employees are family or relatives. An intensely shy man, he's generally regarded as a nice guy. David quietly lives the opulent life of a porn baron, sending his kids to private school, flying around the world on exotic vacations, and enjoying the odd drink, joint and gamble. He appeared with his wife at the 12/98 opening of Larry Flynt's new club on Sunset Blvd, Hustler Hollywood. After a bad experience with the Australian pornographer Axis (who never paid him), David has re-established ties with down-under porno. He once owned three stores there. 10/30/00 Do David Sturman, Russ Hampshire Truly Love Each Other? Today we begin the first in a series on porn's closest relationships. We examine the dynamics between David Sturman, the owner of GVA West and Sin City, and Russ Hampshire, owner of VCA and connected to Babenet. Porn is an industry operated on relationships, many of which go back 15 years or longer. The industry is a good ol' boys club. Despite this, there are often tensions and even, gasp, hatred, between pornographers. Today we wonder, do David Sturman (Jew) and Russ Hampshire (Gentile) truly love each other with heart and soul? Do they relate according to the I-Thou theories of Jewish theologian Martin Buber? David and Russ must do business with each other, even when they're not exactly one souled with each other. GVA needs VCA product and VCA needs GVA's distribution. A source near Russ Hampshire speculates: "I don't think David likes Russ much. I think Russ dissed David in the early 1980s when David was a party boy. By the way, don't let Russ know that I am talking to you or he will go nuts and start banging his baseball bat and conduct an inquisition around the company to find out who your VCA deepthroat is." A Sin City source responds: "Luke, David has produced over 300 movies in over ten years and has used most all the adult directors during this period. Many of them have given him less than perfect movies. As you can see, he no longer use any outside directors except when necessary and all of these work under Michael Raven who David trusts implicitly. Roy Kartch is an outside director is use on occasion because he puts all the budget money into the projects, they are quality, and he has scruples. "David's been married for over 17 years with three beautiful children. This source is one s--- disturbing schmuck who has some sort of inferiority complex. People are jealous so they make up things about others to make themselves feel better. I feel sorry for them." XXX, a famous and knowledgeable porner who appears often of l-keford.com but prefers to remain anonymous, says: "Russ used to be a much angrier rougher tougher more volatile guy than he is today. He's mellowed. And as he's mellowed, his relationship with David has improved to the point that now Russ is about the only one of the big porners that David likes to hang with. "Why did David get rid of award winning director Kris Kramski? Because Kris f---ed David for four years. Kris would get tons of money to shoot in film then turn in a film with no sound, because he shot it all in voice over. You design it that way and make it look like you're being real arty. In fact, you save a lot of money because you don't have to do audio transfers nor do you need a camera that has sync sound. So you save yourself $20k and pocket it. I hear it took David a long time to figure that out. "Though nobody has ever f---ed David as much as Paul Norman. Though Lasse Braun f---ed David hard. Made pieces of s--- movies and charged David a ton of money. Lasse was bragging about how much money he made, about $30k per picture he pocketed. You know what you have to do to make $30k off a porno? David's a real schmuck that way." Sydney Morning Herald 1/30/95 By Kate McClymont An American criminal, David Sturman , whose father was once the largest distributor of hard-core pornography in the world, has been able to gain a substantial slice of the Australian pornography industry while serving a jail sentence in California. By using Australians to act as owners of his businesses in Sydney and Canberra, Sturman avoided probity checks which are essential in gaining a licence to operate. Two years ago, Sturman and his American partner, Mark Franks, set up a group of companies to control the importation, sale and distribution of pornographic videos from outlets such as the Adam and Eve shop in Canberra. In June last year one of their Australian "fronts", Jeff Morton, took information about David Sturman to numerous people, including John Marsden, whose law firm had been involved in setting up the companies and providing legal advice. To date, Sturman is still behind the companies, Morton has been charged with embezzling funds and his former American business associates have placed "wanted" advertisements in Sydney's gay press seeking his whereabouts... In July 1992, Franks and Sturman, a business associate, decided to expand to Australia and they approached Morton to act as one of their "front persons". The Herald has obtained several "Declaration of Trust" documents signed by Jeff Morton in November 1992. At this time Sturman was in jail. The documents stated that Sturman provided the money for the purchase of shares in several companies and that Morton was "at all times acting ... as Nominee and Trustee only for the said David Sturman " and that all profits were to go to Sturman... David Sturman , whom prosecutors described as his father's "arms and legs" in setting up Swiss bank accounts, received a four-year jail term. He went to jail in September 1992 and was released in July 1994. The business relationship between Morton and Franks began to sour early last year and by June, Morton had been removed from the companies. But he refused to go quietly... Marsden recalls that Morton "started telling me about Mafia things ..." 2/21/99 Sin City launches its big DVD project in March, and various folks who gave input to the company and were then blown off are waiting to see if their ideas will be used without compensation. If so, lawsuits are coming. "Luke, what ideas could possibly be original?" writes a Sin City source. "Anyway, the only original ideas that are implemented at SCV are all, and I mean all, come from within SCV. Of course, we have looked at every DVD produced, both porn and main stream, to make a competitive product. A March release might be a little bit ambitious but look for DVD from us in April. This one must sound, even to you, like so much bull." Email to Luke: "Remember
that crummy movie (Nude World Order) Sin City did with David Christopher
about professional female wrestlers? Sin City pumped lots of money both
into the movie and into PR. "A humorous anecdote:
before shipping, the brain surgeons at Sin City decided to send out
screener and slicks to buyers. They also bought these little toy magnetic
wrestlers, and the screener and toy and slicks were put in some pretty
expensive packaging. Well, if you know anyting about video tape, you
might know that the media is recorded on the tape magnetically. If you
want to remove media from a tape, you degauss it, i.e., use a magnet
to remove the media. Hehehehehe...you figure it out. They erased the
tapes. Sources tell Luke that the reason that Sin City has been a mess for years is that its owner David Sturman employs friends who aren't competent. One much criticized member of Sin City is the duplicator Ari, who is blamed by many for driving down prices in porn in the mid '80s with his Israeli cut-throat methods. Ari is essentially Sin City's General Manager, though the true power at the company has long been thought to belong to Art Director Mark Snyder. When David Sturman started Sin City in 1989, he wanted the best artist around. Sturman thought the Western Visual boxes were the best back then, and Snyder designed them. Sturman hired Snyder, and Sin City earned many nominations by AVN for Best Box Cover. Snyder also become one of David's best friends. When David spent two years in prison (1992-93), Mark Snyder was a rare porner to visit him regularly. Unfortunately for Sin City, many artistic persons like Snyder do not have what it takes in a business sense. So David has had to resume control of Sin City's business operations. Though undoubtedly talented
as an Art Director, Snyder still releases (like the rest of his peers)
numerous boxes with misspellings and inaccurate information. According to rumors,
Ari the duplicator secured his position at Sin City by refusing to testify
in the early 1990s against Reuben Sturman, David's father. But a well-places
source tells Luke: "David's duplication arrangement with Ari has
nothing whatsoever to do with his past relationship with Reuben. To
the best of my knowledge, there was never any time Ari was ever called
to testify against Reuben. Ari, in effect, is the general manager of
Sin City, and he works cheap, David pay him nothing for it. Ari, like
Mark Snyder, is a great person. David Sturman has to
meet a million dollar payroll every month and deal with constant pressure
and fines from the IRS (due to his past in tax evasion).
4/22/01 Zoe Says David Sturman Called Her Fat Zoe tells GeneRossExtreme.com: "Basically David Sturman called me one Saturday night, midnight, and told me I was fat." Zoe says Sin City dropped her because she wouldn't do anal. Luke writes David Sturman, owner of Sin City Video: "I was so sorry to see your good name slandered on GeneRossExtreme.com... But you know you can count on me to check out there allegations and give THE TRUTH a forum." David Sturman replies: "Oh, well. Thanks for being so magnanimous. I am sure you do this unselfishly. As usual, I got a kick out of Zoë's rantings. It was interesting that you picked up the story because I haven't read Ross' site for months. I have been so busy lately that it is hard to follow all the industry bulls---. The bottom line is that she blew up like a Macy's Day Parade balloon and I did tell her that to help her because I thought she would jeopardize her career. As always, I treat the contract players fairly and get dumped on. Every box cover picture of her had to be worked on for hours and her body and face were actually carved to give them a thinner look. Just another flaky porn actress I guess. All I do is spend a lot of money promoting these people who do not appreciate or understand it and end up leaving the company before they are adequately promoted so they could go out and either make a living dancing or on the internet. As I said, Oh, well." 5/18/01 When Jimmy Caci Shook Down David Sturman XXX says: You know who sent Jimmy Caci (West Coast mobster whose contacts go up to Sonny Franzese of the Colombo crime family) to Sin City to shake down David Sturman in 1995? It was Ken Gallo, aka Kenji, that Japanese guy who thinks he's a mobster. You can see Jimmy Caci and Ken Gallo and Tabitha Stevens in this picture. Gallo claimed that Sin City owed him money. I think they screwed David over which is why David was being a hardass. They got into a screaming match. There were a lot of people in the building when it happened. Kenny called these people (Jimmy Caci and company) in from Palm Springs. David got into an argument with them. David told they to go f--- themselves. And they said they were going to make a phone call. David said, 'You're going to make a f---ing phone call? I'll make a f---ing phone call. I'll make your f---ing phone call s--- in your pants.' In other words, David can make a bigger phone call. And those guys left. Luke: They left with thousands of David's dollars. XXX: They left with way less money than was owed Kenny. I know they settled for less, for like $9,000 out of $15,000. David was ballistic. He was pissed beyond belief. He was screaming. 'You bring these f---ing wiseguys into my f---ing place?' And then David tried to blackball Kenny Gallo. He said that GVA would not buy anything that had Kenny Gallo's name on it. I'm sure he still won't talk to Kenny Gallo. YYY says: This Israeli guy Ben, through Jerry Zimmerman, sold a movie to Mickey Blank at Sin City. And Sin City never bothered to pay. So Jimmy Caci went down there and collected the money from David Sturman. Later, Sin City owed money to Kenny Gallo for the Buck Adams movie Blade. The video rights were sold to Kevin Beechum and David Sturman bought the foreign and cable rights. David claimed that Buck owned the money and that he didn't owe Kenji any money. So Kenji showed him the copyright on the movie. So Kenji and Jimmy Caci and a couple of other guys went into Sin City to pay David Sturman a call. And Buck Adams and Mickey Blank and a bunch of guys were there. Buck got thrown out. And David said, 'I don't know what you guys are making such a big deal about. It's only $13,000.' An argument erupted. David tried to weasel his way out and that he knew people, muscle, too. So Jimmy says, 'Get on the phone bubblegum chewing motherf---er. Call who you've got to call.' And of course, David didn't call anyone because he can't. He has no muscle. Just because you have money doesn't mean anything. Then Mickey Blank interjected until he got told to shut up. And Gallo got his check. Jimmy Caci made hundreds of thousands of dollars off of porno. But he and the other mobsters hate to be called pimps. But they take the money. They shake people down and they're silent partners with pornographers. Jimmy Caci was good friends with Butchie and Tony Peraino and LP Duplication and "Big Chris" Natale Richichi (a captain in the Gambino family). Big Chris's son Sal owned L.A. Video with Kevin Beechum. Big Chris lived in Las Vegas. He just died. 7/12/01 David Sturman Blackballs Kenny Gallo From Jill Kelly Shoot I hear that Sin City Video owner David Sturman blackballed porn producer Kenny Gallo from working on a shoot for Jill Kelly Productions this week at the Sin City studio. A few years ago, Buck Adams producer Kenji aka Kenny Gallo came in to Sin City with several Mafia guys, including Palm Springs mobster Jimmy Caci, and muscled David into paying him. A porner tells Luke: David had nothing to do with banning Kenny from the Jill Kelly shoot. Maybe it was someone who worked for David. Luke: "Who is Kenny Gallo?" Porner: "Exactly. Who is? He talks s--- about David [Sturman] and Mark [Snyder]... Kenny knows why he couldn't go into David's building. He knows his past relationship where he f---ed up." An inside source says: "David made a deal with Buck Adams. And Buck owed Kenny Gallo money. So Kenny took it upon himself to hire these junior Mafia guys to extort money from David because Buck owed him. Sturman bought the foreign rights to the movie. And once David got paid, David paid Buck. And then Kenny Gallo showed up at David's door. "David could've made calls to New York but he worried about his family. So he just paid the money and that was it. "David didn't know who these mobsters were. They were these midget Italian guys. David called Kevin and Beechum said he'd take care of these guys. David's a Jewish guy from the suburbs and is not used to this."
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