Woman Gets Probation for Making Torture Films

A Hesperia woman who produced and distributed films in which she tortured her husband pleaded guilty Tuesday in Los Angeles Municipal Court to five misdemeanor obscenity counts.

Such plea bargains are unusual in pornography cases, in which attorneys often cite First Amendment rights of free expression, but “the nature and subject matter of the films make it extremely difficult to defend,” said Stuart Goldfarb, lawyer for Anita (Mistress Anne) Murray.

“These films were not simulated,” Goldfarb said.

Judge Carol Boas Goodson gave Murray, 45, a suspended sentence of one year in Los Angeles County Jail and placed her on five years’ probation on condition that she get out of the adult film industry and donate $10,000 to the Los Angeles Police Department’s DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, “helping to erase, rather than add to, some of the ugliness in our society.”

Murray sold her hourlong films for $100 apiece through the mail, said Deputy City Atty. Michael Guarino, acting as a special assistant to the U.S. attorney.

Search warrants have been served on two New York companies that allegedly also distributed Murray’s movies and federal charges against the firms are being considered, Guarino said. The search warrants are sealed because the investigation has not been completed.

Most of the movies feature Murray, who stands 6 feet tall and weighs 170 pounds, inflicting punishment by various methods, some scatological, upon her 5-foot-9, 160-pound husband, Richard Henry Lichy, 51, Guarino said.

Los Angeles police saw Murray’s catalogue, which was available at a local newsstand, and ordered five films with such titles as “The Bizarre Debut of Mistress Anne Murray” and “Leather Domina.”

When a search warrant was served at Murray’s home in the San Bernardino County desert in January, authorities found the couple, in matching negligees, baking a cake, Guarino said.

Murray’s income from the film business was about $50,000 a year, Guarino said, though she sold her master tapes to other companies, which allegedly made much more. The movies were sold in New York, the District of Columbia and Oklahoma, as well as in California, Guarino said.

The couple sat quietly in the courtroom Tuesday. The defendant offered brief responses to the judge’s questions and told a reporter, “I have nothing to say to you.”