Mistrial declared in L.A. fetish film producer’s obscenity case

The federal obscenity prosecution of Los Angeles fetish film producer and distributor Ira Isaacs ended in a mistrial Tuesday after jurors deadlocked on charges that the filmmaker produced, sold and transported obscene material.

The panel deliberated for about a day after watching four films created or distributed by Isaacs, whose Internet-based business specialized in a niche of the pornography industry that included scatology and bestiality. The films, two of which Isaacs directed and appeared in, made up the bulk of the three-day trial last week.

Jurors were deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of conviction. Two of the four women on the panel voted against conviction, including a 75-year-old who in court last week wore a Christmas-themed sweater with snowmen, said the filmmaker’s attorney, Roger Diamond.

Isaacs said that juror told him after the trial that she found artistic value in the movies. The filmmaker and his attorney said prosecutors tried to get the juror disqualified during deliberations, saying she had failed to disclose that her late husband made horror films.

Diamond said he contended, and the judge agreed, that the jury questionnaires only asked in the present tense if potential jurors have family members in the movie business.

During the screening of one of the films last week, a Japanese movie involving bestiality, the juror had appeared focused on the screen even as others looked away or shaded their eyes.

For material to be found criminally obscene, it must lack serious artistic, scientific or political value in addition to appealing to prurient interests and being patently offensive.

Isaacs took the stand last week to testify that he was a “shock artist,” drawing inspiration from artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Robert Rauschenberg.

Two Department of Justice prosecutors dispatched from Washington contended the claim to art was a pretense and that Isaacs was only seeking to profit from exceeding the limits of what is legally allowed.

In a congressional hearing last month, U.S. Atty. Gen Eric Holder had touted Isaacs’ prosecution as “a major case” and called it “an example of what we are doing” with respect to adult obscenity.

A department spokeswoman Tuesday declined to comment on whether prosecutors would try the case again. U.S. District Judge George H. King tentatively set a new trial date for April 24.

Isaacs’ first trial in 2008 was halted when the judge recused himself after a Times report that he maintained sexually explicit material on a personal website. The filmmaker said Tuesday that he was “a little disappointed because I have to go through this limbo again.”

“It’s like some kind of Ferris wheel and I can’t get off,” he said.

Adult Video News senior editor Mark Kernes, who covered the trial, said even though the mainstream adult film industry generally stays away from bestiality or scatology, Isaacs’ case was closely followed.

“It’s more a worry about obscenity prosecutions in general and that in this day and age, there is one going on,” he said.

victoria.kim@latimes.com