Anybody who enjoys watching porn should be focused like a laser on what is happening to our good friend and Evil Angel owner John Stagliano.

John is on trial for his life after being charged with “obscenity” for two movies we love here — Milk Nymphos and Storm Squirters 2. They also tried to get him for a fucking trailer for Belladonna’s “Fetish Fanatics 5.”

Fortunately, the judge tossed out the Fetish Fanatics charge, because the bumbling feds couldn’t make the trailer play correctly for the jury.

From XBIZ:

Extreme Associates partners Rob Black and Lizzy Borden will each spend a year and a day in prison as part of their guilty pleas on obscenity charges.

Black, whose real name is Robert Zicari, and his wife, Borden, whose birth name is Janet Romano, also received two years of supervised release at sentencing Wednesday.

They pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to distribute DVDs purchased by an undercover U.S. postal inspector in Pittsburgh.

The Extreme Associates obscenity case has finally come to an end. I don’t even know how long its been since Rob and Lizzy were first charged, but I think it’s been 3 or 4 years.

Like Max Hardcore, Rob and Lizzy were asking to get busted with their dumbass movies. Rob made movies deliberately with the intention of inflaming the Justice Department. I remember one of their movies that caused controversy centered around a guy dressed like Osama bin Laden raping a female U.S. soldier in a cave.

I’m all about free speech, but you can’t tell me Extreme Associates was just catering to an underserved niche with that one. It was about being controversial and acting like an ass hat.

Anyway, Rob and Lizzy pled guilty to one count each of conspiracy to distribute obscene materials. Sentencing is scheduled for July 1st.

They face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. I’m gonna go out on a limb and predict they get probation instead of jail time.

Retired porn star Janine was sentenced to 6-months in federal prison for tax evasion. Janine pled guilty last summer to tax evasion after intentionally failing to pay her taxes. She currently owes more than $294,000 in back taxes.

It looks like Max Hardcore is going down without a fight. His attorney’s have filed a motion with the court to postpone his 46-month prison sentence while he appeals his conviction.

Adult producer Max Hardcore has asked a judge to let him postpone his 46-month prison sentence while lawyers appeal his conviction on obscenity charges.

Hardcore counsel plan to appeal his conviction on seven points, including the argument that federal obscenity laws violate the right to sexual privacy and are “unworkable when applied on the Internet,” according to a motion made Thursday.

He’s lucky to be out right now, the judge could have made him begin serving his sentence the day of his conviction. Personally, I think Max is a fucking scumbag who gives the entire porn industry a bad name. Having said that, I still don’t believe Max should go to prison for making porn movies. Obscenity prosecutions are total bullshit.

What do you consider ‘obscene?’ What do you think your neighbor would consider ‘obscene?’ Is is possible that you and neighbor might differ? Do you know people who might disagree with what you consider ‘obscene’?

These are all questions that must be considered when looking at the outrageous case of Max Hardcore. Max is a pornographer pure and simple. His real name is Paul Little and he makes some of the filthiest and most degrading porn around.

If you saw one of his movies you would likely be totally disgusted. However, as despicable as his films may be to the average person there are some people who like his movies. Let me be clear, we’re not talking about child porn here. I’m talking about consenting adults who are in these movies and who watch these movies.

The federal government decided that Paul Little’s movies offended them so they charged Little with 10 counts of distributing ‘obscene’ materials through the Internet and mail.

Little went on trial and 12 jurors sat through several hours of his movies, and after a lengthy deliberation they too decided his movies were offensive. This was despite testimony from some of the women who starred in Little’s movies. The women told the jury that they were well paid and had no regrets about doing the films and were certainly never forced to do anything.

Today Paul Little was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison and fined more than $1.7 million dollars for distributing material that some deemed to be ‘obscene.’

My point here is not to gain sympathy for a pornographer, but to highlight the bigger picture and what it means for free speech.

The Supreme Court uses what is called “The Miller Test” to determine whether or not something is ‘obscene’ or not. There are 3 factors all of which must be satisfied in order for something to legally be considered ‘obscene.’

1. Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
2. Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions^[2]
3. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. (This is also known as the (S)LAPS test- [Serious] Literary, Artistic, Political, Scientific). specifically defined by applicable state law.

The reason this is deeply flawed is because it lacks a national standard. How can you apply a ‘community standard’ to something transmitted over the Internet? Moreover, a community standard might be different in Georgia than it would be in California.

For these reasons, Little has a very good shot at overturning his conviction on appeal. However, that still doesn’t change the seriousness of these kind of prosecutions by the government and what they mean for free speech.

You may not care about the porno guy, but what if next time it’s a song? Or maybe a painting? What if next time the federal government decides a certain book is obscene? The real truth is that ‘obscenity’ is in the eye of the beholder.

One person may find a rap song riddled with the n-word to be obscene and offensive, while another person may like the rap song buy find pornography to be offensive.

In the United States pornography provided all parties involved are at least 18 years of age or older is completely legal. So for the government to single out certain adult filmmakers for prosecution because they don’t like the kind of stuff consenting adults are doing in the films is totally unacceptable.

Pornography does have its legal limitations in the U.S. as well it should. It’s flat out illegal to film persons under the age of 18. It’s illegal to have sex with animals and dead people — which we can all agree are good laws.

At no time was it ever alleged that Paul Little’s movies contained any illegal acts — but merely taken as a whole they were deemed to be ‘obscene.’

The government cannot make pornography illegal, because that would be unconstitutional. So the idea is to try and put pornographers out of business by charging them with ‘obscenity.’ Little’s case is the first one they’ve actually been able to secure a guilty verdict.

In the end the feds don’t really care if they get a guilty verdict, because the cost of defending an obscenity case in court usually bankrupts the porn company in question — so the government ‘wins’ either way.

This is the kind of crap you would expect to happen in Russia, but not in America. Underhanded tactics like that are the real obscenity in this country.

Regardless of how you may feel about porn, this is an outrageous prosecution and represents a shocking abuse of power by the Justice Department and is fundamentally unconstitutional.

(via The Hot Joints)

Porn superstar Kayden Kross will be appearing in federal court on Oct. 14th to be arraigned on charges of grand theft and real estate fraud both of which are felonies.

Following a lengthy investigation by the FBI, Kross was arrested at LAX following her trip to New Zealand. Scott Fayner has the scoop on Kayden’s arrest and the back story of the charges.

A disabled Veteran and his wife, along with their four children, lived in a house they could no longer afford. So the house went into foreclosure. Bummer.

Kayden Kross knows a mortgage broker, who in April of 2006 tells her of a family that needs help and would she like to do a foreclosure bailout on the house to both buy property and help out a family in need? Kayden says yes.

So now Kayden owns the house, and the family pays her rent. Everyone is happy.

Meanwhile, Kayden buys another house the same way, and takes a $30,000 loan on each house’s equity (at 125% interest) plus another $35,000 each to go into escrow accounts. In total, Kayden borrowed $130,000 against her new houses.

Then she vanished into thin air. The mortgage payments on the houses stopped being paid, and the family was kicked out.

Meanwhile, Kayden went and sold the titles for the two houses for $10,000 a piece.

She now had $150,000 that didn’t really belong to her.

That’s where her trouble started.

And that’s pretty much where we stand until Kayden’s arraignment.

That’s a pretty serious story right there. If true, Kayden could be facing some serious prison time. Nothing can kill a porn career (or any career for that matter) faster than a lengthy sentence in federal prison. Obviously, we don’t want to jump to any conclusions before all the facts are out and she’s had her day in court, but I hope for her sake that this is all some kind of misunderstanding.

UPDATE:

Kayden’s ex-boyfriend weighs in on the matter.

A juror serving in the Tampa obscenity trial of a porn producer Max Hardcore has asked the judge if shorter portions of pornographic movies could be shown in court as evidence.

Believe it or not the wussy juror was a man, and he asked the judge in a note to please not show the entire movies.

Max Hardcore is on trial for “selling obscene material” and the judge has allowed the lawyers to show as much of the supposed “obscene” movies to the jury as they feel is necessary. Hardcore’s defense team has thus far preferred to show the movies in their entirety.

Producer, director and porn star Paul F. Little and his company, MaxWorld Entertainment Inc., are charged with five counts of using a computer server to sell obscene matter and five counts of delivering obscene matter through the U.S. mail. Little’s Max Hardcore Web site was housed on servers in downtown Tampa for about three years.

This is a very similar prosecution to the one being waged against John Stagliano and Evil Angel. The Feds have no chance of getting a conviction, so their goal is to bankrupt the companies with legal expenses from having to defend themselves.

For the record, I think Max Hardcore is an asshole. His movies are mean spirited and really not any fun to watch at all.

Having said that, as repugnant as Max is he still has a right to make his movies. His prosecution is purely political and he’ll once again be found innocent.

For those who don’t follow the day to day happenings in Porn Valley, you likely aren’t aware of this story. Evil Angel is a porn company which I have applauded on numerous occasions on this site. I have recommended many of the great Evil Angel websites like Anal Acrobats, Buttman, and others.

I stand by those recommendations and I stand by company owner and industry veteran John “Buttman” Stagliano. The U.S. Justice Department is now indicting Stagliano, Evil Angel Productions and John Stagliano Inc. with seven counts of operating “an obscenity distribution business and related offenses.” The charges stem from the mail and Internet distribution of two movies, plus a web trailer.

The movies named in the indictment are “Milk Nymphos” directed by Jay Sin, “Storm Squirters 2″ directed by Joey Silvera and a trailer from Belladonna’s “Fetish Fanatic 5.”

It goes without saying that it’s outrageous in the extreme for the government to say what is and what isn’t obscene. The Justice Department tries these little stunts every couple of years and have yet to get a conviction on anyone, but their plan is to cause Evil Angel to go bankrupt from the enormous legal expenses associated with their defense.

If you would like to donate to John Stagliano’s legal defense fund you can do so at DefendOurPorn.org. This is about more than just Stagliano or Evil Angel, this is about our right to look at adult material. Next they could decide certain books are obscene, or maybe music.

If your feeling even more generous you can donate a few dollars to The Free Speech Coalition which lobbies the government on behalf of the adult industry and helps to keep porn legal.

Also, to help raise funds for DefendOurPorn.org, Evil Angel is planning a special collectors’ edition compilation DVD of the company’s best scenes from each of its directors, handpicked by company owner John Stagliano.