Major Sex Tape Distributor Is Sentenced to 4 Months Home Detention

One of the nation’s largest distributors of pornographic videotapes has been ordered to serve four months home detention, and his company has agreed to forfeit $3.5 million in assets for sending obscene material through the mail, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Mark C. Carriere, 37, owner of Multi-Media Distributing Inc. of Los Angeles and Merrillville, Ind., also was ordered Friday by U.S. District Court Judge Spencer Letts to pay a $3,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service.

Carriere, the owner of Canoga Park-based Video Exclusives, was ordered to wear an electronic monitor during detention at his Encino home. He could have received a five-year prison term and a $250,000 fine.

Carriere could not be reached for comment Monday.

The case against him grew out of a controversial crackdown by the U.S. Department of Justice on makers of pornographic videotapes in Los Angeles. Carriere and Multi-Media were accused of mailing obscene tapes, with such titles as “Midnight Fantasies” and “Erotic Video Catalogue,” into the Tallahassee area in northern Florida.

As part of a plea agreement earlier this year, Multi-Media agreed to turn over 600 tapes and $3.5 million, which represents the largest forfeiture in an obscenity case in U.S. history, according to government officials. Multi-Media was also fined $500,000, the maximum possible.

Carriere pleaded guilty July 20 to a single felony count of interstate transportation of obscene material, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. As part of the sentence, he agreed not to ship any more tapes depicting sex acts into northern Florida.

When the company entered its guilty plea on April 2, U.S. Atty. Ken Sukhia said: “This case represents a major victory for the citizens of North Florida. These convictions demonstrate this office’s continued commitment to enforcing federal obscenity laws in this district.”

But free-speech advocates on Monday branded the continuing enforcement action an infringement on constitutional guarantees.

“This is another notch in the gun belt of the federal government’s illegal war on pornography,” said Barry Freylich, executive director of the Free Speech Legal Defense Fund, a San Fernando Valley advocacy group.

Freylich branded the government’s tactic of filing obscenity cases in conservative communities in the South and Midwest unfair. While Los Angeles makers of sex tapes have frequently won pornography cases filed locally, they fear going to trial in places the government has chosen to pursue its prosecutions.

“The accused had no choice but to cop a plea,” Freylich said. The only other option, he said, was to go to trial and face the possibility of losing his business.