Mother Tells Porn Trial of Daughter’s Role in Films

The television monitor flickered to life, displaying an ersatz talk show. On the right was a man holding a microphone. On the left was a young woman in a bikini, lounging in a provocative pose.

“Miss Traci Lords, how did a nice girl like you get into a business like this?”

Freeze frame.

Inside the federal courtroom in Los Angeles on Wednesday, the witness was asked whether she recognized the female.

Patricia Briceland identified her daughter, Nora.

Could she estimate Nora’s age when the videotape was made?

“She was 17.”

It was not an easy day for Patricia Briceland. Department of Justice prosecutors had called her to the stand to testify in a child pornography and racketeering case to help them show that her daughter, known to the public as Traci Lords, was under the age of 18 when she made dozens of X-rated films and videos.

Defendant Rubin Gottesman of Woodland Hills and his company, X-citement Videos, are accused of distributing the child pornography and obscene materials, as well as violating federal racketeering statutes.

Time and again, Briceland was shown pictures of her daughter on video cases bearing such titles as “Screaming Desire,” “Lust in the Fast Lane,” ’Prisoner of Pleasure” and “Sweet Little Things.” Time and again, she was shown clips from the videos--halted before the scenes became sexually explicit.

The federal prosecutor asked his questions in a dull monotone. Briceland answered with confidence. In one video, she said, Nora was “definitely 16.” In another, “I would say 17.” In another, “right on the fringe . . . she could be 16 or 17.” In another, “she’s heavier there--she’s 16.”

Signs of Emotion

Only when defense attorneys tried to find chinks in her testimony, did strong emotion flare.

At one point, defense lawyer Stanley Fleishman showed her a photo on the back of a video case. Could she identify her daughter?

“You’re showing me a picture of someone’s rear end, sir,” Briceland snapped. “No, I can not identify if that’s my daughter.”

Briceland had brought other pictures of Nora to court--family photos for the prosecution to use as evidence.

Nora Kuzma, she explained, was the second of her four children, all girls. Three of the girls were born in Ohio, the fourth in West Virginia, before the family moved to Redondo Beach. Briceland and the girls’ father are divorced.

Still using the stage name Traci Lords, Nora is 20 years old now and pursuing a career in mainstream film and television.

Her mother recalled in testimony that Nora was 15, a high school sophomore, when she became “rebellious . . . she was very concerned about money . . . she was missing school.”

Moved Out of Home

Three weeks before her 16th birthday, Nora moved out, her mother said. In the years since, she said, they have seen each other “sporadically,” perhaps once or twice per month.

Some time after Nora left home, Briceland said, she heard a rumor that her daughter had become involved in nude modeling.

Nora denied it, but later, when Nora was 17, Briceland saw the layout of “Traci” in Penthouse magazine. Soon she learned of the videos.

Briceland said she asked Nora to quit, but her daughter refused.

When she threatened to go to authorities because of Nora’s age, “She told me if I did that, the people she was involved with would kill her. She told me to keep my mouth shut, or I would get her in terrible trouble.”

Defense lawyers, interviewed during a break, suggested Briceland was “well coached.” They voiced doubts about her ability to readily gauge her daughter’s age from photos and videos.

But on the witness stand, Briceland suggested it was not difficult at all. Nora had changed so much, so fast, she explained.

At 15, she was “kind of a chubby adolescent, although she had a nice figure.” But soon, the pudginess in Nora’s body and face disappeared, giving her a leaner, more adult look.

“They” kept making Nora’s hair lighter and lighter, Briceland said, changing it from a natural reddish brown to fair blonde.

She saw other changes in her daughter--in “the way she smiled” and “the look in her eye.

“She started getting very hard, very tough after she started making the movies.”