Just because you didn't leave in cuffs means you passed. Inditements may not come for some time.

I agree with your logic (and hope you're right), but the nature of litigation and criminal prosecution almost always assures a huge financial drain on the persecuted - regardless of their guilt or innocence. Just going through the hoops of asserting the absurdity may put many guys/gals under.

As for judges, they focus on the letter of the law, and if the law states jail time for clerical, it probably won't be till Supreme Court appeals that the disproportionate penalty can be challenged and used in consideration of judgement (at least, based on all I've seen on TV :) )

I'll be interested to see what happens when they start inspecting producers outside of California, since supposedly LA county, CA is the only place where it's technically legal to 'produce' porn.

Exactly. And how technically they choose to prosecute will be a political decision based on their findings.

Obviously either your memory or your time in this industry doesn't cover much time, I'll leave my guess to myself.

The US government isn't afraid of anyone in this industry. You look at the people that went on trial, or even to jail, in the last go around over obscenity and mail order, and you'll see that it wasn't the nickel and dime guys they were trying to bust. Of course this was during Meese and you probably weren't out of diapers back then.

In more recent history, the FTC had no issue bringing it to one of the top 5 internet adult companies half a decade ago. And might be bringing it again to companies that are that size if rumors are more than rumors...

That will never be enforced.:1orglaugh

I agree no one in this industry is filming girls underage..most of the underage stuff comes from overseas..

Either you're kidding or you haven't heard of Cash Titans.

Im not really sure when this happened, but some time after the Lords situation, they started to use the langueage " Knew or should have known " in Laws like these. In otherwords, You knew, or should have know that the person was under age, and that her ID was fake.

Believe it or not, I saw it in a trial in Miami, and they said that. The guy defended himself, but having 6 police officers state that there is NO WAY they he could have know that the license was fake, since it had been issued by DMV. Well the guy got 6 years.

the law is very fucked up.

I disagree that "no one" in this industry is filming underage girls.... there are some sick fucks out there and the line between "almost 18" and "18" can be blurred when some chick is saying she'll take up the ass from godzilla for a grand so she can get some meth.

I do think that the vast vast vast majority of producers are law abiding citizens, but it wouldnt shock me if they bust some producer.... I don't know what a pedophile looks like, not sure I could generalize enough to say that nobody in the porn industry is one.

Um... let's get one thing straight here - 2257 inspections do not require a "search warrant" of any kind to be produced by the inspecting agency.

Under 2257(c)
"Any person to whom subsection (a) applies shall maintain the records required by this section at his business premises, or at such other place as the Attorney General may by regulation prescribe and shall make such records available to the Attorney General for inspection at all reasonable times."

So, if the FBI (or other law enforcement agency properly deputized by the AG) shows up at your door to conduct an inspection of records subject to regulation under 2257, you must make said records available to them for inspection.

(So-called 'secondary producers' who are also members of the FSC excepted, for the moment, under the terms of the preliminary injunction issued in FSC v. Gonzales in December... but I wouldn't count on that staying the case. The Walsh Act is going to change the playing field in that case, and likely lead to the whole case needing to be filed anew.)

All the FBI is required to do is to show up during "reasonable times" - meaning if they show up at your empty office at 2am, they can't turn around and declare you "non-compliant".

On the other hand, under the statute, such an inspection cannot be used by the government as a carte blanche to search the entire premises where those records are kept.

To wit, 2257 (d)(1)
"No information or evidence obtained from records required to be created or maintained by this section shall, except as provided in this section, directly or indirectly, be used as evidence against any person with respect to any violation of law."

and on the other hand... 2257 (d)(2)
"Paragraph (1) of this subsection shall not preclude the use of such information or evidence in a prosecution or other action for a violation of this chapter or chapter 71, or for a violation of any applicable provision of law with respect to the fur¬nish¬ing of false information."

In other words, they can't run around your house looking for a bong and some weed, find some in the bathroom cabinet, and then charge with possession, if they entered your house/business to inspect 2257.

However, they are not precluded from things they find in the records search to charge you with RELATED offenses - like falsifying documents, etc.

Hope that clears things up a bit with respect to warrant requirements and 2257.

- Q.

they already have the second one was at a guys house in PA

I was about to post that. Didn't he also say they went through his cameras, his kitchen and his cabinets?

Wow, it has been that long hasn't it.. I had nearly forgotten.

They had a warrant for him, dont know if it was because it was in his house.

I should clarify that my earlier assertion with regards to the scope and evidentiary proceeds of a 2257 inspection assumes that if you are engaged in any kind of illegal activity, you are not foolish enough to keep evidence of such criminal activity mixed in with your 2257 records, or in "plain site" on the premises that house your records.

"Plain site" provisions would still be in operation, presumably.

Also, unless you *must* use your home/residence as the location of your records, do not do so.
- AND -
Keep your records separate from everything else pertaining to your business - this is a requirement of the statute, anyway. Furthermore, if you are both a secondary and primary producer, keep those types of records separate from *each other*, as well.

- Q.

I have been searching for confirmation that there was a warrant involved in the inspection of Sebastian Sloane Prod - is there an article/account out there that specifies this? If you know of one, please provide a link.

An attorney who is not generally given to speculation told a colleague of mine that there was indeed a warrant presented... but I have been unable to confirm such, independently.

- Q.

its from a gay webmaster forum he wrote on give me a email addy or icq me and i will give u the link

Very cool - thanks.
Email = [email protected]

- Q.

sent :thumbsup

From what I understand there was no warrent for Robert Hill Releasing. He has a lot of Brazilian movies, some Thai and some titles that are young in theme. I'm thinking those would be the target.