Three Men Indicted on Federal Obscenity Charges
 

DALLAS - A federal grand jury has indicted three men on obscenity charges for allegedly selling rape and sexual torture videos over the Internet. Federal authorities are seeking the extradition of two of the men from Canada, including Tom Gartman, a notorious spammer, who is also known as Clarence Thomas Gartman.

Brent Alan McDowell, 35, is also currently residing in Canada. McDowell and Gartman are both charged with one count of conpsiracy to distribute obscene material, two counts of transportation of obscene material and aiding and abetting, and one count of mailing obscene matter.

Lou Anthony Santilena, 30, is also charged with count of conpsiracy to distribute obscene material, and one count of mailing obscene matter. Santilena resides in Henderson, Nevada.

Gartman, 33, is the former business partner of Garry and Tamara Ragsdale, who were convicted on obscenity charges stemming from their partnership with Gartman last October.

Local authorities began investigating the Ragsdales in 1998 after being tipped off by a German who found the couples' Website. Although Gartman and the Ragsdales had stopped working together earlier that year, Gartman's Web properties were discovered during the investigation of the Ragsdales.

Forbiddenvideo.com and Fetish1000.com are a few of the domains that Gartman and his accomplices are known to have worked with.

Gartman and McDowell each face 20 years if convicted. Santilena faces ten.

This is "Trashman", the fool that has already been banned twice...I'm telling you now to ban this idiot again before he pisses everybody off.

Canadians mailing obscenity to US, say it isnt so!

I guess this means you better know who you're advertisers are and everything they're promoting.

noted, thanks for the heads up BVF.

They say that the suspects were "selling rape and sexual torture videos." Are they claiming it was real rape and torture or that they were fantasy videos?

There is a fucking difference. Right wingers consider BDSM to be torture. Don't count on the right wing media to actually report the truth or do any research on what they report.

The character of some of the men involved aside (do spammers have any character?)...

This will be a very interesting case for us Canadians in the porn biz. It may even go to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Will the Canadian government extradite Canadians to the US for doing something involving freedom of expression which is perhaps perfectly legal in Canada? (I'm not familiar with the details of the content in question, but if it is just BDSM, and/or fantasy role-playing, then it may be legal in Canada, a la the Sweet case).

The Supreme Court of Canada takes Section 2b of the Charter of Rights, the section concerning "freedom of expression", very seriously.

There is some precidence suggesting that this would be a question the Supreme Court might want to consider; accused murders are no longer extradicted by Canadian authorities to the US unless there are guarantees that they will not face the death penalty - the death penalty is considered a violation of a person's rights under the Charter of Rights portion of the Canadian Constitution.

US Federal prosecutors know this and I suspect are looking at this case as testing the waters when it comes to extradicting Canadians on obscenity charges - a pure freedom of expression issue, not as serious as the death penalty to be sure, but still a Charter of Rights issue.

This could be one of those precident-setting cases for Canadian webmasters, for better or for worse. We'll know where we stand in about 8 years or so. :winkwink: Justice in Canada is thorough but sloooooooow.

LadyGardenSnake - do you have the url for that article?

thanks!

Basschick: http://www.avn.com/index.php?Primary...tent_ID=105547

People shouldn't really post the article, just the link. To post the article in it's entirety (without permission) is a copyright violation.