VAN NUYS : 2 Adult Video Firms Fined $5,000 Each

Two California adult video companies that are no longer in business have been fined $5,000 each for shipping four films into Oklahoma.

Cal Vista Direct and Cal Vista Video, both of Van Nuys, could have been fined $2 million. The companies earlier agreed to forfeit $100,000 and to cease operations.

Senior U. S. District Judge H. Dale Cook said four charges against the companies’ officers would be dismissed within 18 months under a deferred prosecution agreement reached earlier this year.

Jurors last summer could not reach a decision on whether the films shipped into the state were obscene.

Sidney Niekirk, president of the two companies, is now out of the adult video field, said attorney Arthur Schwartz. Niekirk, regarded as a founder of the modern adult film industry, has gone into production of more mainstream films in America and overseas, Schwartz said.

Undercover federal agents set up a fictitious video store in Broken Arrow, Okla., in 1989 and began ordering films. The case was based on four of the films sent to the agents, “Sorority Pink,” “Sorority Pink II,” “Backdoor Lust” and “Awesome.”

Schwartz said neither adult company has any assets left to pay the fines.