L.A. Firms Indicted on Porn Charges

A federal grand jury in Dallas on Monday indicted three Los Angeles companies and five of their officials on charges of interstate transportation of obscene material and conspiracy, alleging that they have run a wholesale distribution system for hard-core pornographic material.

The indictment marks the second major case to result from 30 searches earlier this year by the FBI and Los Angeles Police Department of makers and distributors of sexually explicit videotapes, books, magazines and advertising.

Additional indictments around the country are expected as a federal campaign targeting hard-core pornography, initiated under former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and expanded under Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, moves into courtrooms.

Named as defendants Monday were California Publishers Liquidating Corp., Video Team, Inc., Investment Enterprises Inc., and the operators of the firms, Donald P. Browning and Michael Warner. The grand jury also charged Susan C. Colvin, Christian Mann and Ron Zdeb, employees of the three firms.

The grand jury alleged that the defendants this year and last shipped from California to Dallas, using United Parcel Service, obscene videocassettes with such titles as “Kinky Vision” and “Shaved Sinners.”

Each person named, if convicted on all counts, would face a maximum of 35 years in prison and a $1.75-million fine. Each corporation faces up to $3.5 million in fines. The Justice Department is also seeking forfeiture of assets of the corporations found to have been used in the alleged crimes.

John Weston, a Los Angeles attorney, said all defendants will plead not guilty “and will aggressively contest the allegations”--both in terms of the specific charges of obscenity and the constitutionality of the laws and procedure being used.

Weston said that the Bush Administration “for what we believe are the most cynical of political reasons is attempting to impose a national censorial stranglehold on the citizens of America to vindicate the beliefs of a small radical group of constituents.”

Thornburgh hailed the indictment as “another significant step in our aggressive pursuit of the large-scale national distributors of illegal hard-core pornography. By stopping production at the source, we intend to reduce the flow of obscene materials throughout the country.”

Marvin Collins, U.S. attorney in Dallas, said: “We in North Texas are particularly incensed that purveyors of hard-core pornography are making huge profits at our expense. We intend to see that these profiteers are stopped.”

Weston contended that the indictment is part of an effort to placate “the Religious Right,” a shift from rare prosecutions of adult materials in the late 1970s.

Noting that the first charges under the current drive were brought in October in Tulsa, Okla., followed by Monday’s indictments in Dallas, Weston said that the government “is very carefully handpicking areas where it believes--and not where we necessarily agree--there will be hospitable jurors.”

The indictment alleged that California Publishers Liquidating Corp., which the Justice Department described as one of the two largest wholesalers in the nation of sexually explicit materials, distributed obscene videocassettes through its subsidiary, Video Team.

The grand jury also charged that Warner operated Investment Enterprises, which did business under the name Great Western Litho & Bindery, to print mass quantities of box covers for obscene videocassettes, sexually explicit magazines and books, packaging for sexual devices and advertising materials.