Record Retailers Charged : Lawsuit: Two chains are accused of selling rap group 2 Live Crew albums to minors.

Obscenity charges were filed Wednesday in Omaha, Neb., against two of the nation’s largest record retail chains for selling albums by Miami rap group 2 Live Crew to minors.

A total of six criminal counts were filed against Musicland and Trans World Music Corp., as well as an Omaha retailer, after store employees allegedly sold copies of the group’s “Sports Weekend” album to underage customers. The record carries a music industry label that says “Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics.”

The sales allegedly took place last week during a private sting orchestrated by Omaha City Councilman Steve Exon and an anti-pornography group called Omaha for Decency in conjunction with the Omaha city prosecutor and city police vice squad.

Under Nebraska law, it is a first-degree misdemeanor to sell obscene material to minors. Each count carries up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine upon conviction.

“This wasn’t something we just went off on our own and did haphazardly,” Exon said Wednesday. “The police and city prosecutor were intimately involved in this from day one. I don’t think that there is a jury in the land that wouldn’t find this record to be pornographic.”

This is not the first time 2 Live Crew’s raunchy lyrics have caused the retailers legal problems. After a Florida federal judge ruled in 1990 that the group’s “As Nasty as They Wanna Be” album was obscene, a Fort Lauderdale retailer was convicted on obscenity charges for selling it.

Two months ago, Omaha City Prosecutor Gary Bucchino successfully prosecuted Pickles Records & Tapes--the Omaha store cited along with the two chains--for selling “As Nasty as They Wanna Be” to an 11-year-old girl. The store chose to pay a $250 fine rather than face trial.

Exon said he decided to move against the retailers after reading that Washington Gov. Booth Gardner signed a bill to make it a crime after June 13 to sell minors records with lyrics that a judge deems erotic.

“Our goal is to let the record industry know that we are not going to tolerate this kind of product being sold in our community either,” said Exon, whose father, U.S. Sen. James J. Exon (D-Neb.), participated seven years ago in a series of Senate Commerce hearings to investigate the danger of rock lyrics.

“We’re not just upset about 2 Live Crew. There are hundreds of recordings in rap and heavy metal that we think are very damaging. And we aim to go after them next. We think we have come up with a way that is going to seriously affect the music industry and their bottom-line profits.”

None of the retailers had been served papers on Wednesday but Nick Armijo, manager of the Pickles store that was fined in March, said the threat of prosecution has retailers “on the run.”

“We’re nervous to sell anything to anyone under the age of 18 now for fear that somebody’s going to pull another sting on us,” Armijo said. “Who knows what they’re going to go after next? Maybe it’ll be the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Jane’s Addiction or Guns N’ Roses. Those are our best-selling records right now. Everybody out here is terrified.”

Don Kohls, chairman of Omaha for Decency, said he hoped his group’s sting would ensure that retailers would stop selling “explicit material” to minors in the future.

“This isn’t just about rap,” Kohls said. “We’re against any kind of music--rap, metal or rock--that falls within the parameters of obscenity. We do not want anybody selling this stuff to our children.”

2 Live Crew leader Luther Campbell was flying to Omaha to visit retailers Wednesday and could not be reached for comment.