lawpal

Here is one from Fort Worth, Texas. This couple now faces up to 20 years in prison.


http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/7079225.htm

Posted on Wed, Oct. 22, 2003

Fort Worth couple convicted on 3 obscenity counts
By Toni Heinzl
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

A federal jury in Dallas on Wednesday convicted a Fort Worth couple of violating federal obscenity laws by selling videos featuring graphic rape and sexual torture via a Web site.

Legal experts, prosecutors and defense attorneys say it is the first federal obscenity case involving adult pornography in North Texas in at least 10 years.

Former Dallas police officer Garry Ragsdale, 34, and his wife, Tamara, 32, were named in indictments unsealed in June, five years after FBI agents, postal inspectors and Dallas vice detectives launched their original investigation.

A defense attorney suggested the prosecution was pressured politically by officials in the U.S. Justice Department, which has broadened its scope in vice investigations from child pornography to obscene adult pornography under the direction of Attorney General John Ashhahahahaha.

After 5 1/2 hours of deliberations following five days of testimony, the jury convicted the Ragsdales on all counts as charged -- one count of conspirary to mail obscene material and two counts of mailing obscene material.

U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater could sentence the couple to up to 20 years in prison, prosecutors said. Sentencing is set for Jan. 23.

"This case clearly demonstrates that a jury drawn from our community can make a determination that materials containing offensive adult material violate our community standards," U.S. Attorney Jane Boyle said in a prepared statement. "The citizens on the jury clearly rejected the Ragsdales' contention that the materials they sold did not violate community standards."

Garry Ragsdale's defense attorney did not deny that his client sold the tapes through a Web site.

But attorney Clinton Broden argued that people have a First Amendment right to watch such tapes, and that his client was simply selling them to consenting adults.

"We are disappointed in the verdict," Broden said in a telephone interview. "There's other material out there that is far worse, and two of the tapes shown to the jury are currently sold on other Web sites."

The couple was not aware that they were doing anything illegal and took the Web site down immediately when questioned by investigators five years ago, Broden said.

The defense brought in an expert witness, a sexologist, who testified that violent Hollywood-produced movies "are much more dangerous psychologically than adult movies," Broden said.

But Broden failed to convince the jurors that the tapes sold by the Ragsdales were not obscene.

The U.S. Supreme Court outlined the standard definition of obscenity in a three-part test in a landmark 1973 case, Miller v. California. Under the Miller test, jurors are asked to decide:<
Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.


Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law.


Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Investigators first learned of the Ragsdales' business on April 21, 1998, when a computer user in Berlin, Germany, sent an e-mail complaint to the Dallas Police Department, court records show.

Dallas vice detectives checked the tip from Germany and discovered that the Ragsdales' Web site marketed itself as "the real rape video store." They offered tapes for up to $28 apiece, and the couple earned about $60,000 from the rape video tapes, according to court records.

Investigators ordered the tapes from the Web site via credit card. The tapes were shipped in the U.S. mail, with a return address listing an Arlington post office box registered to a business partner of the Ragsdales, who is believed to live in Canada and has not been indicted.

Prosecutors would not say whether the business partner was a target in an ongoing criminal investigation.

The investigation ended Garry Ragsdale's eight-year career with the Dallas Police Department. Dallas police internal affairs records show that Ragsdale was fired Aug. 21, 1998, for conduct unbecoming an officer, Senior Cpl. Chris Gilliam, a department spokesman, has told the Star-Telegram.

Ragsdale's dismissal came after a misdemeanor state obscenity charge was filed July 29, 1998. But Dallas County prosecutors dismissed it almost a year later "in the interest of justice," court records show. Federal prosecutors then took over the case.

On a larger scale, the case illustrates a commitment by the U.S. attorney general to beef up Justice Department resources to target obscenity cases involving adult pornography, Broden said.

Ashhahahahaha recently changed a policy that had required prosecutors from the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in Washington to seek approval from a local U.S. attorney before filing obscenity cases. Now, these specialized prosecutors in Washington can pursue obscenity cases after simply notifying local U.S. attorneys, although they are encouraged to cooperate with their local colleagues.

The Ragsdale case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Linda Groves of Dallas and trial attorney Richard Green from the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.