Prosecution’s Choice of Charge at Issue : Producer of Sex Films Will Be Tried for Pandering

A Woodland Hills man who police say produces hard-core sex films was ordered Thursday to stand trial for pandering in a controversial case based on the premise that it is a crime to hire actors to perform sex acts for filming.

After a two-day preliminary hearing, Judge Robert H. Wallerstein ordered that Jerry Tenenbaum, 40, be arraigned in Van Nuys Superior Court May 22.

Tenenbaum was charged Sept. 12 after eight Los Angeles police officers raided a private residence on Mulholland Drive in North Hollywood where two sex movies were being filmed.

Mandatory Sentence

If convicted, Tenenbaum faces a mandatory sentence of three years in prison.

However, the first time the state used the anti-pandering law against producers of pornographic films, Van Nuys Superior Court James A. Albracht last July refused to impose the mandatory term.

At that time, Albracht said it would be “cruel and unusual punishment” to sentence Harold Freeman of Encino, producer of “Caught From Behind II,” to three years.

He instead sentenced him to 90 days in jail and fined him $10,000 for pandering.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is appealing Albracht’s refusal to impose the mandatory term, and Freeman is appealing the use of the pandering law against him.

The Los Angeles Police Department is the only agency in the state charging makers of hard-core sex films with pandering, a crime normally associated with prostitution.

Three Other Cases

Three other such cases are awaiting trial in Los Angeles, said Los Angeles Police Detective James Como, who led the raid that led to Tenenbaum’s arrest.

At the preliminary hearing, much of the evidence of Tenenbaum’s involvement came from actress JoAnn Hall, 27, of San Diego, who testified under a grant of immunity from Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth A. Freeman.

Tenenbaum’s attorney, Robert Moest, said his “suspicion is that she has been threatened with arrest for prostitution if she does not testify.” Prosecutor Freeman declined to comment on whether Hall had been threatened with prosecution if she did not cooperate.

Moest contended that the Legislature never intended the state pandering law to be used except against those who lure women or men into prostitution.

No Fun

He cited testimony by Hall, who uses the film name Joanna Storm, that she experienced no sexual pleasure while performing sex acts on the set, each of which usually took several hours to film.

“This is not sexual activity as normally defined. This is acting,” he said.

Moest said the goal of the police is “censorship by the back door. . . . They can’t close down this industry by the obscenity laws, so they are trying this method.”

But prosecutor Freeman termed the issue “quite simple.” He said, “It is a crime to pay someone to engage in a sex act. And it is no less a crime just because the act is being filmed.”

In an interview, Tenenbaum predicted that the pandering prosecutions would have little effect on the sex-film industry.

“Outside this city, especially in San Francisco, no one seems to care. It’s just the Los Angeles police,” he said.