Judge Gives Light Penalty to Porno Film Producer

A judge Monday refused to impose a minimum three-year prison sentence on Harold Freeman, a producer of hard-core sex films who was convicted in May of pandering, and instead ordered the Encino man to spend 90 days in jail and fined him $10,000.

Calling the minimum prison term required by law “cruel and unusual punishment,” Van Nuys Superior Court Judge James Albracht also postponed imposition of the jail term and fine, pending appeal of the conviction.

“This is a victory for me and other adult film makers,” a jubilant Freeman said as he left court.

Prosecutors said Monday they would urge a higher court to impose the full sentence.

Freeman, 49, was the first film maker convicted in California under the controversial 1982 “anti-pimp” law, requiring a minimum three-year prison term for hiring people to perform sex acts.

The producer contended that performers in his 1983 film, “Caught from Behind, II” were actresses. Prosecutors charged that the women were prostitutes, because they were hired to perform sex acts.

The law states that anyone who procures a person to engage in sex is guilty of pimping and pandering. It was designed to give law enforcement officers stronger tools to control prostitution.

Option of Judge

The legislation was introduced by Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), whose Hollywood district has been plagued by prostitution.

The law requires judges to incarcerate convicted pimps for from three to six years. However, Albracht had the option of reducing the term by declaring the law, in Freeman’s case, unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

Los Angeles Police Administrative Vice Officer James Como, the detective who arrested Freeman, expressed dismay after the sentencing.

“Pandering is against the law, and if Mr. Freeman continues to make adult films in which prostitution takes place, we will arrest him and prosecute him again,” Como said. “That goes for all adult film makers, not just Mr. Freeman.”

Freeman said that rentals of adult videos last year, which he claimed numbered 55 million cassettes, proves that “we are not pimps and panderers, but businessmen giving people what they want.” He described his business, Hollywood Video Productions, based in Sepulveda, as “a family operation” and his movies as “straight pornography--I don’t do child molestation, defecation, bestiality.”

Effect on Industry

The producer, who estimates he has made more than 100 full-length sex films, was arrested by vice officers in October, 1983, and charged with five counts of violating the state’s “anti-pimp” law. A jury convicted him of all five counts in May.

Freeman’s attorney, Stuart Goldfarb, said he thought that prosecutors had not been successful in shutting down Los Angeles’ multimillion dollar sex film industry by applying existing censorship laws, so instead they were trying to use the Roberti law to curb the business.

The judge said that the intent of the law under which Freeman was convicted was to prosecute “actual pimps--the guys in the long fur coats, the broad-brimmed, floppy hats, the purple cars, who maintain a stable of prostitutes.”

“I find his business to be deplorable, but that’s irrelevant,” Albracht added. “It wasn’t the intent of the Legislature to put people like Mr. Freeman in prison when this law was passed.”

Freeman said Monday he intends to continue making sexually explicit films, but not in Los Angeles County where, he said, police and prosecutors are “intent on putting us out of business.” He said he will probably take his business to San Francisco where, he said, authorities appear less strict at enforcing the pandering law.