About John Stagliano’s and Evil Angel’s Obscenity Indictments

I want to take a little time here from letting you know about something actually important to both the adult industry and people in general, and that’s the right to free speech.

It seems to me that not enough attention is being given to the current battle Evil Angel and John Stagliano are facing. That’s not to say that Sara Suckalot’s new big blowbang, the party that Mary Jane Rottencrotch is hosting or Julie Juggies big dance appearance isn’t important. Of course they are. But this is really, really important, and this is where my joking will end.

In case you haven’t heard, John Stagliano (a.k.a. Buttman) and his companies were charged with “three counts of using a facility of interstate commerce to sell and distribute DVDs containing obscene films together with a movie trailer; two counts of using a common carrier for the conveyance or delivery of DVDs containing obscene films in interstate commerce; one count of engaging in the business of selling or transferring an obscene film and a movie trailer in; one count of using an interactive computer service to display an obscene movie trailer in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age, and one count seeking forfeiture of certain assets of the defendants.” In layman’s terms, he made and sold porn movies a prosecutor thinks are obscene, showed a trailer of a Belladonna movie on the Internet that they think is obscene and that an irresponsible parent might not block from their teenager, and if found guilty, John should give up whatever assets that might have come as a result of the sale of this stuff, and a grand jury agreed with the prosecutor and indicted John. Now, if he’s convicted, John faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on each of the obscenity counts (you do the math), plus another two years on one of the other counts. Oh yeah, and he faces a maximum penalty of $500,000 in fines for each of these counts.

Karen and John Stagliano

When I first heard about this case, I did my “holy shit,” and right away thought about what the Staglianos must be going through. I was going to see Karen a week or so later at Exxxotica Miami and wondered what her frame of mind would be and if she even would come. She did come and she was her usual awesome self. Then I wondered if the adult industry’s personal watchdogs, the Free Speech Coalition, who have probably received hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions (you can ask) from those in the business, did anything to help. I have heard rumblings from those in the know, they have not and that’s a damn shame if it’s true.

Let me go back a bit and say that an indictment is merely an accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent of the charges and it is the government’s burden to prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. John pled not guilty at his arraignment on April 21st in Washington, DC on all these counts. He was processed and released on his own recognizance and awaits a trial which some say may not happen until sometime in early 2009.

I spoke with Karen Stagliano at length yesterday and have had conversations with her regarding this case on several other occasions since this went down. Karen is not only John’s wife, but also the publicist at Evil Angel. Some of you might also know her as “former” performer Tricia Devereaux. I know her as one of the sweetest and most intelligent people in the industry.

Karen updated me on the case and told me that Evil Angel has seen the government’s discovery. On June 12, 2008, all four of their lawyers — Paul Cambria, H. Louis Sirkin, Allan Gelbard and D.C. counsel, Robert Corn-Revere — will be in Washington for a status hearing. John was given permission to be present by phone call only during the status hearing. He is intending to phone in from Los Angeles. John’s in good hands as three of his four attorneys have tried cases in the Supreme Court. At this time they will tell the judge their planned course of action and they will come up with an estimated time when they think this will go to trial.

John has no intentions of plea-bargaining, and once this trial begins, the judge would not be likely to grant acceptance of a plea. Stagliano, as do many of us, believes in a person’s right to free speech and expression. As Karen told me, “We make our movies for the people who want to watch them. If someone in Middle America doesn’t agree with what we do and doesn’t want to watch our movies, then they don’t have to. That’s totally their choice. But there should also be a choice to watch our movies if someone enjoys them.”

How is Stagliano dealing with all of this? Hey, if any of us were facing substantial prison time, the litany of fines, and a stack of legal bills like this, I know that I for one would be shitting the proverbial brick. Hell, I’d probably be shitting a whole quarry. With the possible criminal consequences aside, even if John wins there will still probably be millions of dollars in legal and related bills. Just to put it into some sort of form for you to understand, Evil Angel’s recent copyright infringement case against a Canadian company racked up legal bills around $1,000,000 dollars. There were two attorneys working that case, and this one has four. Feel free to do the math yourselves. Some estimate millions.

“John is in a very focused frame of mind,” Karen told me about his mental status. “He thinks it’s ridiculous the government would do this. He’s going to stand up for what he knows isn’t wrong. He’s not going to stop doing what he’s doing. We don’t think anything that we’ve done is morally wrong.”

There are tens of thousands of adult movies and scenes shot for DVDs and Internet sites each and every year. Are they all obscene? Who is to decide what is technically obscene? What a housewife from Atlanta might object to, another housewife in Atlanta might play for sexual stimulation for her and her husband. Are Evil Angel’s movies in question with this case that extreme? In our jobs here we see a plethora of movies and scenes daily. Sure, some are more “extreme” than others, but these are fairly tame comparatively speaking to a sea of adult material in the world.
Other companies and individuals in the mainstream adult business have faced somewhat similar accusations by the government — Seymore Butts, Rob Black, Max Hardcore, JM Productions are just a few of the more recent ones. Evil Angel are definitely the biggest of the bunch to be indicted, and in my humble opinion, this one really hits home because I know they are good people and have become to count Karen as a personal friend. Why were they chosen from such a large pool of prospected whipping posts? Maybe they got on the radar because of their high-profile copyright case, or maybe it’s just because they’re a whale in a sea of guppies. We love to do things bigger in this country.

We as consenting adults and fans of adult entertainment have to join John and stand up for our constitutional rights. It’s our right to choose what we want to watch, say, and purchase and enjoy in our personal lives. Tomorrow, I’ll bring you a second part to my diatribe on how you can help with not only this case, but also support the position that it is our freedom to choose what we want to want to watch. In the interim, go to DefendOurPorn.org to learn a little bit more on what you can do.

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