U.S. Indicts Porn Sellers, Vowing Extensive Attack

The Justice Department on Thursday charged a North Hollywood wholesaler of adult films with violating federal obscenity laws, launching the first of what it promised would be a wave of criminal cases against purveyors of pornography.

The 10-count federal grand jury indictment against Extreme Associates and its executives, Robert Zicari and Janet Romano of Northridge, raised alarm among adult entertainment companies in the San Fernando Valley, which is considered the capital of the nation’s multibillion-dollar pornography industry.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft promised upon taking office that he would crack down on the distributors of adult entertainment material such as movies, magazines and Web sites, much as his Reagan administration predecessor Edwin Meese III did in the 1980s.

With the government’s antitrust trial against Microsoft Corp. completed and the war on terrorism well underway, Thursday’s charges suggest pornography has moved closer to the center of Ashcroft’s radar.

“Today’s indictment marks an important step in the Department of Justice’s strategy for attacking the proliferation of adult obscenity,” Ashcroft said.

The department, he said, will “continue to focus our efforts on targeted obscenity prosecutions that will deter others from producing and distributing obscene material.”

Executives at Extreme Associates did not return calls Thursday, but one industry official said adult entertainment businesses were preparing for a fight.

“This is just another form of harassment by the government,” said William Lyon, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, a Canoga Park-based trade group for the adult entertainment industry. The government will “try to get convictions on the edges of this industry, and we will fight them all the way.”

Thursday’s indictment came after investigators with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service set up a sting operation in Pennsylvania. From September 2002 through July 2003, the indictment says, the defendants sold allegedly obscene material over the Internet and distributed videotapes and DVDs across state lines through the postal system, a violation of federal law.

Extreme Associates produces movies such as “Extreme Teen #24” and “Forced Entry -- Directors Cut,” which depict the fictional rapes and murders of several women, according to court documents.

The sting came in conjunction with an obscenity investigation conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department as well as complaints sent to the Justice Department in western Pennsylvania, said U.S. Atty. Mary Beth Buchanan.

“If a company is wanting to take advantage of the Internet for marketing and distribution purposes, it’s their responsibility to make sure they’re not violating local laws,” Buchanan said. “If their conduct is not legal, it’s up to them to take a firm stance not to operate there.”

Extreme Associates, a relatively small player in triple X-rated entertainment, has garnered both financial success and public attention in the last several years for its line of hyper-aggressive adult films.

The privately held company employs 15 people and has annual sales of $20 million to $49.9 million, according to the U.S. Business Directory.

Extreme’s offices were searched in April under a federal search warrant. The unsealed warrant shows that federal and postal investigators seized copies of five different movies as well as sales records, distribution invoices and an array of other business documents.

On the company’s Web site, which Thursday featured an American flag waving in the breeze, Zicari posted a statement that said no one had been arrested and that the company remained in business. He vowed to fight the government and wrote, “I definitely will not sit here and cry a bunch of tears.”

He went on to name the five allegedly obscene films and, in an act of defiance, announced that the company was selling what he called “The Federal Five” tapes at a discount on the firm’s Web site.

Zicari and Romano are scheduled to be arraigned in Pittsburgh on Aug. 27.

If convicted, Zicari, 29, also known as Rob Black, and Romano, 26, also known as Lizzie Borden, each could face as much as 50 years in prison and a fine of $2.5 million. The company could pay a fine of as much as $5 million.

The case is a flashback to the war on pornography that the government waged in the 1980s, which shut down dozens of production companies and sent executives to prison for distributing raunchy fare.

Meese’s Commission on Pornography linked sexually violent materials with “antisocial acts of sexual violence” and attempted to draw ties between extreme sex entertainment and child molestation.

The commission’s 2,000-page report set off an unprecedented flood of anti-porn sentiment and legislation that landed several high-profile porn executives in prison -- including Russell Hampshire, head of the video manufacturing company VCA Labs Inc. In 1988, he served nine months for shipping obscene videotapes across state lines to federal agents in Alabama.

Hampshire wasn’t alone. Vivid Video Inc. in Van Nuys and founders Steven Hirsch and David “Dewi” James were indicted by a federal grand jury in Mississippi in 1991 on obscenity counts for shipping four hard-core tapes to the state. The company pleaded guilty and paid a $500,000 fine. The founders served no prison time.

The industry has been bracing for a renewed crackdown since Ashcroft became attorney general in 2001. Film producers took note when the department spent $8,000 on curtains to cover two partly nude classical statues in its Washington offices.

Though there has been a steady string of state and federal cases tackling obscenity issues in the last few years, many of the suits have focused on online child pornography.

“Every time we get a Republican administration, these kinds of cases seem to perk up,” said lawyer Elliot Abelson, who defended the industry in obscenity cases from the late 1970s to the mid-’80s.

The adult entertainment industry has grown dramatically since then. Annual rentals and sales of adult videos and DVDs top $4 billion, and the industry churns out about 11,000 titles each year -- more than 20 times as many as Hollywood, according to Adult Video News, a trade magazine.

Adult film stars regularly lobby legislators in Sacramento on issues ranging from government regulation to taxation. Industry-funded research touts the estimated $31 million in sales tax revenue California receives each year from the rental of 130 million adult videos and from Internet sales.

Social mores also have changed, allowing the industry to be perceived as more mainstream. Academics plumb porn for its cultural and business significance. Cable television channel Showtime airs a reality show called “Family Business” about the day-to-day life of pornography producer Adam Glasser.

Jerry Bruckheimer, the Hollywood producer behind “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” and the “Bad Boys” movies, is working on a prime-time series this fall for Fox Television called “Skin,” in which the son of a Los Angeles district attorney falls for the daughter of a porn giant.

This week legendary pornographer Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, and adult film actress Mary Carey began gathering signatures to run in California’s gubernatorial race.

Because of the industry’s increasing public presence, obscenity convictions are becoming more scarce, said Frederick S. Lane III, an attorney and author of “Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs of Pornography in the Cyber Age.”

Prosecutions, Lane said, are no longer “slam dunks.”