The Region - News from March 14, 1985

Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt was sentenced to 60 days in prison for using obscene language before the U.S. Supreme Court and for wearing an unauthorized Purple Heart medal. Flynt, who was also fined $350 and placed on three years’ probation, pleaded guilty to the Purple Heart charge last October in a bargain with federal prosecutors, who agreed to dismiss charges that he desecrated an American flag and assaulted an FBI agent. Flynt, 44, a wheelchair-bound paraplegic since a 1978 assassination attempt on him, pleaded guilty last month to a charge that he used obscene language before the Supreme Court in November, 1983. Before sentencing by U.S. District Court Judge Consuelo Marshall in Los Angeles, Flynt said: “All I can say is that at the time of these offenses, I seriously needed psychiatric help. . . . I want to extend my apologies to this court and to all the other courts in which I misbehaved.”