Charges Filed Against 3 Men Suspected of Producing Sex Movies

Felony pandering charges were filed Friday against three men who allegedly produced sex videotapes in a Canyon Country home.

The men, who were caught in a June 18 raid on the house by Los Angeles police officers and sheriff’s deputies, were each charged with 17 counts in San Fernando Municipal Court, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth A. Loveman said.

It is the fifth case in which the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has charged makers of sex films or videotapes under the state pandering law, which mandates a prison sentence of three to six years for hiring a person to engage in a sex act.

“The crime they committed was to pay people to have sex for money,” Loveman said. “We are alleging that they paid several men and women to perform a variety of sex acts, and then these men would take advantage of the acts by distributing the film.”

The men charged--Charles Brickman, 40, of Woodland Hills; Thomas Ingalls, 22, of Van Nuys, and Edward Ginsberg, 28, of Hermosa Beach--face a maximum state prison term of 11 years if convicted. They also could be fined up to $10,000 on each count.

Loveman would not say how authorities learned of the taping, but said the three men had worked in the sex-movie business before.

“Investigators say that the people we are charging have credits in other films which are now available,” he said.

The three men, along with the actors and crew, apparently had just finished a day of taping at the Sand Canyon Road house at the time of the raid, Loveman said.

Charges were not filed against the cast and crew, the prosecutor said, because “we are only concerned with the producers who paid the participants to have sex.” The owners of the house also were not charged.

The three men have not been arrested, and no arraignment date has been set, Loveman said. Each of the 17 counts represents one person hired to engage in sex, he said.

Three of the county’s cases in which the pandering law has been used against film makers are awaiting trial dates.

In the fourth, Encino film maker Harold Freeman was convicted of pandering but Judge James A. Albracht declined to issue the mandatory prison term. Instead, Albracht sentenced Freeman to 90 days in jail and fined him $10,000.

The district attorney’s office is appealing that decision.