3 Men Charged With Felonies in Sex Film Case

Felony pandering charges were filed Friday against three men for allegedly producing pornographic videotapes in a Canyon Country home, authorities said.

Seventeen counts were filed in San Fernando Municipal Court against each of the men, who were found in a Sand Canyon Road house being used for filming when it was raided June 18 by Los Angeles police officers and sheriff’s deputies, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth A. Loveman said.

The case is the fifth in which the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has charged sex film makers 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.”

Facing Prison Terms

The men charged, Charles Brickman, 40, of Woodland Hills, Thomas Ingalls, 22, of Van Nuys and Edward Ginsberg, 28, of Hermosa Beach, face maximum state prison terms 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 filming, but said the three men had worked before in the sex movie business.

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

The men, actors and a crew apparently had just finished a day of shooting when the raid began, Loveman said.

Others Not Charged

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

The three men have not yet been arrested and no arraignment date was set, Loveman said.

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