[CTRL] [2] Mafia & Porn

[Kris Millegan]

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John Krasner, who built a smut empire based in Allentown, Pennsylvania that
spread throughout the northeastern United States, proclaimed himself the
"Prince of Pornography." In reality, he was a puppet of Reuben Sturman.
Before Krasner went bankrupt in 1966, and then began, with Al Morrow, to
publish porn, his arrest record included robbery, narcotics and gambling.
He financed his porn career with $160,000 in loans from Willie Weisberg, a
major organized crime figure in Philadelphia whose career began with
Prohibition. For years Weisberg was second-in-command of Philadelphia’s Rosen
Mob, a highly organized criminal network.
Krasner had close business relations with Norman Arno and Teddy Gaswirth.
"Krasner’s business operations were incredibly sophisticated and complex. A
single Krasner-owned bookstore would be concealed in a maze of corporations
and individuals acting as "straw men." Fromer Krasner employees have revealed
that a typical bookstore may have involved as many as eight corporations,
thereby concealing actual ownership." (Porn Merchants, p.93)
Bouncing from one crisis to another during the 1970s, Krasner was convicted
of conspiring to kill Al Morrow, a former business partner. While free on
appeal, his wife was kidnapped and held for ransom. She finally escaped. Then
several of his stores were bombed.
In 2/6/79, Krasner was gunned down in a Fort Lauderdale parking lot in what
looked like a mob style hit, possibly ordered by his former partner Morrow.
Krasner's son Phil took over his dad's operations, and was eventually busted
for laundering money.
On 5/29/79, Morrow was shot but survived. He was later convicted for arson
and fraud.
To combat the Mafia's porn racket, the FBI launched MIPORN. The acronym
combined the location of FBI front operations "Miami" with the subject of the
investigation "pornography."
MIPORN grew out of an investigation by the Dade County sheriff’s office in
Florida in 1976. Two detectives from the office opened a retail pornography
store and quickly found themselves enmeshed in a highly organized secret and
nationwide industry. The two detectives turned for assistance to veteran FBI
agent Bill Kelly, who'd covered the obscenity beat since 1962. Kelly
persuaded his higher-ups to launch the federal investigation MIPORN.
Two FBI agents Bruce Ellavsky and Patrick Livingston moved to Miami in
September 1977. Operating out of Miami warehouse, they posed as a pair of
sleazy porno film buyers for a company they set up called Golde Coaste
Specialties. The agents later set up G&C Sales, Ltd., in the Grand Cayman
Islands to lend credibility to the operation.
Bruce Ellavsky, tall and handsome, used the undercover name Bruce Wakerly and
Patrick Livingstone, short and balding became Pat Salamone. For thirty weeks,
Bruce and Pat wore open-necked shirts, sharkskin suits, designer jeans, gold
neck chains and diamond pinky rings. They drove around in rented Cadillacs,
sometimes with a pair of beautiful women hanging on their arms, and boasted
their drug dealing. To keep their credibility, they became "dupers," one who
makes and sells unauthorized copies of films whose rights to distribution are
held by others.
The agents infiltrated the porn industry and dealt with top crime figures who
pirated mainstream movies as well as producing and distributing smut. The
future owners of VCA Russell James Hampshire (born 7/25/46) and Walter
Gernert (best known as one of the Dark Brothers, Walter Dark) shipped
illegally duplicated videos of mainstream films across state lines for their
TVX Distributors boss Phillip Charles Bernstene. Because such theft cost
Hollywood a billion dollars a year, mainstream distributors contributed much
of MIPORN's $300,000 budget which funded the FBI agents' trips to
pornographers and mobsters in every major US city including New York, Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and
Providence.
When the wiseguys became suspicious and the lives of the FBI investigators
appeared in danger, the undercover agents stopped paying their bills, which
helped establish their credibility. Ellavsky and Livingston eventually gained
the confidence of LA pornographer Rubin Gottesman who introduced the
undercover agents to the industry. They gained these insights.
Robert "DiBi" DiBernado, Theodore "Teddy" Rothstein, and Andrew "Andre"
D'Apice ran Star Distributors of NewYork City - the biggest porn dealer on
the East Coast. Owned by the De Cavalcante crime family in the '70s, the
multi-million dollar conglomerate controlled bookstores, movie theaters, and
publishing houses in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and Georgia.
Star's biggest customer for decades was Reuben Sturman. The FBI, with
assistance from other law enforcement agencies, documented deals between
DiBernardo's Star Distributors and Reuben Sturman, Mike Thevis and Harry
Mohney, among others. DiBi helped Sturman gain control of the porno trade on
the West Coast by intimidating independent dealers and suppliers through
threats and deeds of violence.
Mafiosi like Dibi, as a rule, don't run businesses for the mob generally
contents itself with a piece of the action. According to Jeremiah B. McKenna,
general counsel to the New York State Select Committee on Crime, the mob's
main interest in the New York sex business expresses itself through real
estate deals. The Mafia leases buildings for ten years from legitimate owners
and then subleases them to the fly-by-night operators of massage parlors,
adult book shops, peep shows, at $110 - $130 dollars a day cash - double what
other businesses would pay. "The shops close up and move on, but that lease
stays there until the next fly-by-nighter comes along. The property is held
for the sex industry," McKenna said. "A guy can't come in and start selling
shoes because the money is too great." (Newsday 10/6/86)
Star Distributors first came to the attention of law enforcement when it was
a failing business which shipped product only for cash. But the company
turned around after the arrival of mobster Robert DiBernado who had the "last
word" in the company. He poured money into Star. DiBi had no experience in
porn but he knew crime, owning Satellite Wheel Alignment, a Brooklyn company
that dealt with stolen cars.
Robert lived a hidden life. His suburban neighbors on Long Island knew only
that this "real estate investor" who worked in Manhattan could afford a
sprawling ranch home and white Mercedes. DiBi seemed a family man and a
friendly man - he even coached Little League baseball.
In April 1978, undercover FBI agents Ellavsky and Livingston attended a porn
convention at the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana. At a restaurant
in the hotel, Rubin Gottesman of National Film Company, Los Angeles,
introduced the agents to Star’s Teddy Rothstein who agreed to supply Golde
Coaste Specialties with hardcore 8mm films, magazines and videotapes.
Rothstein later introduced the undercover agents to his 8mm man Andre D'Apice
who said the agents "would have no problem dealing with Mr. Rothstein or Dibi
as long as you are 100% good people... but if you should cross Dibi there are
plenty of people who would kill for him."
Norman Arno owned S & L Distributors of Los Angeles. He met with the
undercover agents in May 1978 after Arno's employee Tim Burns had dealt with
Ellavsky and Livingston for eight months without trouble. Arno said he was
dealing with Rubin Gottesman of National Film Company, Los Angeles, for
pirated video cassette copies of major mainstream motion pictures such as
Jaws. Agent Ellavsky gave Arno a check for $3000. Norman said he'd send Bruce
a "phony" invoice for payment of $3,000 for magazines. Arno wanted the
remaining $3200 in cash so he would not have to report it as income.
Norm said he didn't want any calls concerning mainstream videotape cassettes
over his telephone at his home or business. He said that arrangements could
be worked out whereby he'd call the agents from a pay telephone to get their
orders. Arno said he'd been reluctant to tell the agents he dealt with
pirated movies as this violated federal copyright statutes. He said that
there'd been a lot of activity by the FBI recently and that several producers
of pirated films had been "busted" and now worked for the FBI.
Arno, a huge coke user like Harold Lime, rarely bathed. Hookers usually
charged him three times as much as other customers because he was so vicious
and filthy. During a week in Honolulu, Norm met a rare prostitute who
returned to him the next day. And the next. He decided it was love. They
married.
In the early 1980s, Norm's whore-wife placed their two young children in a
running car in the garage to die from exhaust fumes. Arno never recovered
from their death and his wife's conviction and incarceration. The founder of
porn's first major adult video company, VCX, died in November of 1994 after a
long illness.
In February of 1979, undercover agents asked Gottesman for a print of Debbie
Does Dallas, which Rubin had seen the night before. The LA pornographer told
them he wouldn't even consider doing this because he wanted to remain
healthy. Gottesman said Zaffarano, a former bodyguard for godfather Joseph
Bonanno and an associate of strong man Carmine Galante, would not hesitate to
use muscle if he believed someone was bootlegging his movies. On March 23,
1979, Gottesman told the agents that in the past an individual who'd pirated
hardcore movies was "hit in the head."
On Valentine's Day, 1979, at noon (EDT), 400 FBI agents swept into porno
movie theaters, warehouses, retail stores and offices in 13 major U.S.
cities, arresting many of the mob's biggest names in porn on federal
obscenity and racketeering charges. Among the 58 persons arrested (33 from
California) were brothers Louis and Joseph C. Peraino - rounded up in the New
York office of their company Arrow Film and Video. They were charged with
interstate shipment of obscenity in the form of hardcore videos titled Candy
Stripers, Liquid Lips, His Master's Touch and Hollywood Cowboy.
Michael Zaffarano was the one casualty. When officers arrived at his New York
office, 58-year old "Mickey Z." suffered a heart attack and died on the spot,
clutching a reel of pornographic film that the officers presume he was trying
to destroy.
"We killed him for sure," said one policeman at the scene, "and we saved the
taxpayers a lot of money."
Zaffarano's death created a power vacuum in organized crime's now
international porn operations, touching off maneuvering among the main Mafia
families for dominance of the sex trade. In November of 1981, Joseph S.
Peraino, 55 years of age at the time, was wounded outside his Brooklyn home
by men armed with 9-millimeter handguns. A member of the Colombo family,
Joseph was one of the major figures behind Deep Throat.
On January 4, 1982, Joseph's competitors struck again, chasing him and his
31-year old son Joseph Jr. down a street in the residential section of
Gravesend in Brooklyn.
The pursued men screeched to a halt at 431 Lake St. and ran up the stairs
onto the front porch of a modest brick duplex. The Perainos pounded on the
door seeking refuge until a barrage of gunfire cut them down. The father was
seriously wounded in the buttocks and legs; the son was hit six times in the
head and killed. An innocent bystander was also killed.
As Joseph S. Peraino lay bleeding, with his murdered son at his side, he
refused to tell police who fired the shots, what kind of car they drove or
which way they went.
For their convictions in the MIPORN case, Louis Peraino and Joseph C. Peraino
received prison terms of six and three years. They were not charged with film
piracy, even though police found more than 50 major Hollywood movies at their
Arrow offices as well as equipment capable of reproducing them in quantity.
The list of films confiscated included most of the box-office hits of the
previous decade - Animal House, Kramer vs. Kramer, The Sting, Star Wars and
The Godfather, Parts I and II.
Looking tired and short of breath, Anthony Peraino was sentenced that same
month in Memphis to ten months in prison and $15,000 in fines for his
original 1976 Deep Throat conviction and subsequent bail-jumping charge.
After five years as a fugitive, the ailing Peraino family head turned himself
in to authorities in 1981.
The shootings and convictions marked the end of the Perainos dominance in
porn. As part of their sentence, they were supposed to abstain from all
dealings in the masturbation business. They didn't. Instead, they hid their
work through false names and dummy corporations. In late 1996, the Perainos
sold their porn production company Arrow to Ray Pistol of Las Vegas. Anthony
Peraino died soon after.
MIPORN prosecutors convicted numerous pornographers such as Russ Hampshire
and Walter Gernert for shipping illegally duplicated videos of mainstream movi
es across state lines. The mob forced the sale of pirated tapes through the
video dealers they controlled. Movies such as Superman II, Star Wars, and
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, for example, made fortunes for the
thieves who copied them and offered them for sale on tape.
Another charge leveled was that since these criminals presumably controlled
much of the video cassette distribution of adult films, they violently
suppressed the pirating of their own films. At least 50 pornographers have
been knocked off by the mob since 1969.
The government initially gained convictions of 45 out of the 55 pornographers
arrested in MIPORN through the effective work of Fort Lauderdale prosecutor
Marcia Cohen. When she took time out to have a baby, a less competent
prosecutor took over one of her cases, allowing Ken Guarino to escape
conviction.
Harry Mohney escaped prosecution. In the 1980s, he owned the large porn
production company Caribbean Films and the even more dominant mid-West
distributor of porn films Entertainment World International.
Undercover agent Pat Livingston's arrest in 1982 for shoplifting damaged his
credibility on the witness stand and complicated the MIPORN prosecution.
"I've known Pat since he was an 18-year old clerk," says Bill Kelly. "Years
of working undercover affected him as he began to model the gangsters he
impersonated. Pat did a lousy job on the stand during the MIPORN cases,
changing his stories and appearing shifty. That allowed six pornographers,
including Sturman, to go free."
Many pornographers work with the Mafia reluctantly. According to law
enforcement, most, if not all, important figures in the sex trade have to
work with organized crime because of its muscle and dominant role in
distribution. In 1981, David Friedman through an associate offered Kelly an
office, expense account and $5000 a month to run the Mafia out of porn but
the Catholic refused, saying that he'd never work for a pornographer.
Carlo Gambino's lieutenant Ettore Zappi ran the family's porn operation
through the '70s until he was gradually supplanted by the more financially
agile Robert DiBernardo, a long time partner of Mickey Zaffarano. A former
member of the DeCavalcante family, DiBi joined the Gambinos in 1976.
Robert oversaw Mike Thevis's operations. "Don't forget, Mike," a police
wire-tap recorded DiBi saying when Thevis boasted of owning 90 per cent of
the peep show machines in the country, "you manage the machines. The family
is in charge."
In 1984, when Geraldine Ferraro was the Democrats' vice presidential
candidate, news broke that her husband John Zaccaro managed a building in
which a DiBernardo company leased space for its porn operation. Through her
husband Ferraro received $350,000 in rent from DiBernardo which she used to
finance her political campaigns.
DiBi met frequently with Gambino godfather Paul Castellano at his Todd Hill
mansion - the highest location in New York City - on Staten Island. While
friendly with Paul to his face, behind his back, DiBi supported the ambitious
drug dealer John Gotti.
"He [Castellano] uses me," DiBi said in a conversation bugged by the FBI. "He
makes me look bad. 'Look at DiBi. He makes his money in pornography.' Like
he's some kind of high-and-mighty. Mr. Fucking Clean. Does it stop him from
taking his cut? 'Sorry, Paul, you don't wanna touch those dollars - there's
pussy on 'em.' Ha! He'll take 'em anyway. He wants it both ways. Get paid.
Act clean. My ass."
That the Gambino's main men like DiBernardo talked bad about Castellano back
in 1983 gave the FBI an early warning that the godfather was in trouble. On
December 16th, 1985, Castellano and his chauffeur were gunned down in a Mafia
hit that led to the ascension of John Gotti.
Talking ill of the next boss of the Gambino Family ended DiBernardo's career.
By 1985, after decades assembling a porn empire, Robert told friends and
family that he wanted to relax. He gave his daughter a $15,000 gold watch and
helped his youngest son become the first DiBernardo to graduate from college.
DiBi faced a five-year prison sentence for his MIPORN conviction. Moreover,
another federal investigation began to focus on his role in child
pornography. "Despite his troubles, DiBernardo was known within the Gambino
organization as a ferocious money-earner, and he was entrusted with investing
the organization's rich cut from the concrete industry bid-rigging scheme.
That reputation for making money grow on trees led Gotti to promote him to
capo shortly after taking over the family [early 1986], but almost at once,
he realized his mistake. The problem was that DiBernardo... was skimming a
good portion of the payoff money entrusted to his care, and building his own
real estate portfolio, which by 1986 amounted to over four million dollars.
Much worse, there were rumbles that DiBernardo had tried to deal his way out
of his imminent prison sentence by attempting to become an FBI informant. And
to top it all off, he was also reputed to be attempting to forge a secret
partnership with the Genovese Family's New Jersey division. In sum, enough
malfeasance for a death sentence. On June 5, 1986, DiBernardo and his white
Mercedes disappeared." (Goombata p. 247-248)
Independent MP Dennis Stevenson told the ACT Legislative Assembly, the
governing body of Australia's capitol city Canberra in April, 1991, that
organized crime dominated the porn industry in Australia and America.
Stevenson said Australia's video market began in the 1970s when American
pornographers shipped down under various porn tapes. These were copied and
sold furtively.
Various organized crime figures, including Norman Arno and Theodore Gaswirth,
visited Australia in the 1970s and several times in 1980 and 1981 to set up
an organized crime porn industry.
In 1972, Gaswirth hosted two New Yorkers wanted for the murder of Carlos
Lombardi and suspected in a large heroin distribution network in New York,
Peter Salanardi and Nicholas Musolino. While investigating Teddy, the Los
Angeles District Attorney’s office sought assistance from the Cleveland
Police Department to trace Gaswirth’s frequent calls to a Cleveland number
which turned out to be Discount News Company, which was housed with Sturman’s
Sovereign News.
During the early video era, Arno was a business partner of Michael Zaffarano,
a leading New York mafiosi and key link between the New York families and
Southern California porn. Norm, with help from his vice president Ed Krasnof,
presided over North Hollywood-based VCX Incorporated, a US Mafia-linked porn
company which in 1985, according to estimates, controlled 40% of the US porn
market, then estimated at $5-$9 billion. California's Organized Crime Control
Commission named Arno, Gaswirth and Zaffarano as leading powers in the Mafia
porn trade.
Theodore, also a Mafia associate of Zaffarano, made three trips to Australia
in 1981. Shortly after his MIPORN arrest, Arno applied to the court to have
bail conditions relaxed so that he could visit Australia, which he did
5-21-80. Meyer Lansky associate Daniel M. Stein, who had visited Australia
several times between 3/71 - 4/76 to meet with famous Sydney criminal George
Freeman, arranged the initial connections between Australian hoods and
American Mafiosi.
While down under in 1980, Arno signed a deal with leading Australian porn
company operating in Fyshwick, in Australia's capitol city. Arno and
Gaswirth's main contact was Alexander Gajic, who, with his father Todor,
served as directors of Sienna Pty. Ltd, a company formed in South Australia
but now (1991) operating at Fyshwick in the ACT with Australian United Videos
and Private Screenings Home Video.
Private was run by Alexander Gajic and Barry Taylor, who was arrested in Asia
for drug trafficking. During the 1980 New South Wales state Royal Commission
on Drugs, Justice Woodward named Alexander Gajic as a major drug trafficker
along with Bruce "Snapper" Cornwell and Barry Bull. Gajic did business with
Adivi Trading Nominees Pty. Lmtd., one of its directors being Cornwell. At
the Australian inquiry into drugs in 1985, Justice Steward described Snapper
as a drug baron. Cornwell was convicted for his crimes in 1988 and is serving
a long jail sentence.
Testifying before the Woodward Commission, Alexander Gajic confessed to
dealing in marijuana and heroin. With Joseph David Shellim, Gajic operated a
web of porn companies throughout Australia including Curbydex Pty. Ltd and
Hollywood House Video.
MP Dennis Stevenson: "Organized crime figures in the US and Australia have
been able to put on a face of respectability by using the proceeds of
criminal activities to buy into legitimate businesses. This gives them the
opportunity to launder money and also to hide illegal activities behind a
façade of legitimacy. Organized crime in Australia has created an
interlocking series of companies to provide a corporate shell to dispose of
illegal money by shuffling it backwards and forwards, through fake invoices
and borrowings, until it gets lost in the paper trail."
Wanting to expand his porn operation, Alexander Gajic to buy porn titles for
Gajic to distribute in Australia. Among Gajic's written instructions to Zwier
was a report on Al Tapper, the president of CPLC (Curbydex Party Lmtd?).
"Speak to him, he's a top bloke, who virtually controls the West Coast market
in pornographic books and accessories. I will be importing books etc from him
as well, as soon as I get more cash together. He knows Australia well, being
a friend of Abe Saffron. His attitude is always cash up front."
Todor and Alexander Gajic formed TAG Video, named after their initials, to
distribute porn across Australia supplied to them by VCX. TAG worked with
Gerald Gold in Melbourne, an associate of Mark Arthur Clarkson who hired a
hit man to murder Melbourne barrister Roger Wilson. Though Clarkson was
acquitted of murder, he was convicted of fraud in connection with the
collapse of the Athena Building Society in Victoria, which did substantial
business with pornographers.
Gerry Gold employed corrupt accountant Charles Maxwell McCready to launder
money. McCready was eventually arrested for conspiring to free two drug
traffickers from Pentridge Jail with a helicopter.
Two other business partners for the Shellim/Gajic network were convicted drug
traffickers Amos Kormornick and Esmond Mooseek.
In 1983, Australia's Costigan Royal Commission named pornographers Joseph
Shellim, Alexander Gajic and Gerald Gold as leading eastern States organized
crime figures.
They signed a deal through their company Sienna Pty Ltd with US organized
crime company VCX for Sienna to pay $30,000 for the rights to duplicate and
sell 12 pornographic videos in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guina and
the Antarctica. The three year contract, dated 10/1/85, was signed for Sienna
by Todor Gajic under the name Tom Gadjic and for VCX by Norman Arno.
In April 1991, MP Dennis Stevenson said: "…Organized criminals cover their
underhand dealings by laundering money through legal businesses. If we are to
be serious in attempting to control organized crime and its insidious
undermining of judges, police and politicians, then we must take the actions
necessary to limit or stamp out one of their favored activities, the trade in
X-rated video pornography .. .
"Pornography in the US is controlled by organized crime. We have learnt of
the identities of some of the major crime figures in America who profit from
pornography. We can see that Norman Arno and Theodore Gaswirth came to
Australia with the intention of setting up similar contacts and operations as
those they run in the US.
"We have learnt of the connections that Arno and Gaswirth made with criminals
in Australia. These criminals, like their US counterparts, are also involved
in drugs, prostitution, fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and control of
both the legal and illegal porn video trade. Does anyone doubt that these
same people control the illegal porn trade in Australia?
"These Canberra identities have once more proven by their actions of
advertising illegal material in each and every State that has outlawed
X-rated videos, that they hold nothing but contempt for the law. We have seen
the web of interlinking criminals in Australia that might make one ask: Why
are all these criminals so closely associated with each other? I believe the
answer is: That is why it is called organised crime.
"These criminals are organised. What we need to do, as lawmakers, is to
organise against them. We need to put aside party affiliations or personal
conflicts and do our utmost to act in the best interests of all Australians
and ban these X-rated videos that are currently protected in the ACT."
Chicago pornographer Steven Toushin rose to the top through murder. The
shooting of his partner Paul Gonsky put Steve in charge of their porn
operation in 1976, and the shooting of competitor Patrick Ricciardi on July
24, 1985, placed Toushin among the city's most powerful pornographers.
Unable to tie Steve to the crimes, police and FBI agents huddled with IRS
investigators to figure out how to get Toushin. Veteran investigator Dennis
Czurylo tracked Steve's spending and compared it to his reported earnings.
The figures didn't add up. During 1978 and 1979 for instance, Toushin
reported earnings of $11,435 and $26,630 while paying $23,000 in cash for a
Lake Shore Drive condo. He also bought a Rolls Royce for cash.
Investigators received help from Steve's ex-wife Susan, who broke up with
Toushin in 1980 after balking at signing their fraudulent tax return. She
estimated her husband's income at $75,000 per month.
Toushin spent the 1990s in prison for tax evasion and mailing "obscenity."
In February, 1987, Steve's competitor Marco Glitta was sentenced to eight
years in prison for purchasing remote-control bombs intended to blow up
competitor Paula Lawrence. Two of Lawrence's buildings suffered mysterious
fires in 1986.
Marco's brother Michael took over the Mafia's porn trade in Chicago in 1987,
after the death of Tony Eboli. For several months, Mike struggled for control
with mob assassin Frankie Schweihs. It proved too much. In 1988, Glitta died
of a heart attack.
Known in mob circles as "The German," Schweihs is suspected of murdering such
businessmen as Paul Gonsky, Patsy Ricciardi, and Allen Dorfman. Along with
Toushin, Schweihs spent the 1990s in prison.
A tall stylish woman, Paula A. Lawrence, born around 1947, distributed up to
80% of the porn around Chicago and the Midwest. Fond of jogging and silk
blouses, she began working for Reuben Sturman in the early '70s as a stock
clerk at Castle News Agency in Milwaukee.
Paula moved to Chicago in 1980, buying Capitol News and other businesses from
Hollywood pornographer Donald Gittleson. Indicted in Cleveland in 1985 along
with four other Sturman assistants for conspiracy to conceal millions of
dollars in profits for the porn king, she eventually pled guilty.
Under pressure from government investigators during the mid '80s, Reuben
verbally sold all his sex shops, including several to Paula and her new
husband Roy May. According to government documents filed in Chicago in early
1993, Paula and Roy paid Sturman $1,374,270 from 1979 to 1991 out of fear of
economic harm and violence.
Amidst much government and citizen harassment, pornographers since the late
'80s have chiefly blamed one of their own for their declining profits - Mark
Carriere.
Using the name Mark Curtis, he shot numerous videos during the early '80s
including Hollywood Heartbreakers. "Lovely to look at," writes Adam Film
World. "The women are beautiful, much of the scenery is plush and elegant, or
inventive and surreal. The filmmakers have gone to extravagant lengths to
deliver a series of vignettes so visually arresting and charged that the
story line becomes unimportant."
Born in 1949, Carriere grew up in Merrillville, Indiana. He entered porn in
the early '80s with his younger brother Brad, born around 1954, who became
his treasurer.
Debuting at approximately the same time as high-end producer Vivid Video, the
Carrieres flooded the market with cheap videos.
"I'm always looking to cut corners, to cut people out of the picture," Mark
told the 2/17/91 Los Angeles Times.
He said his sales figures rose from $3 million a year in mid decade to $30
million in 1990. Like Russ Hampshire who owns the largest production company,
VCA, Mark keeps numerous security monitors in his office to keep an eye on
his employees.
The soft-spoken shaggy-haired porn newcomer profited from the talents of
veteran Ron Jeremy. "I was the king of killer and filler," remembers Jeremy,
"all these techniques of hiring that one girl who's on the boxcover and
shooting her for two or three scenes and then make two or three movies using
her. The next day we'd shoot the filler - the girls who were less expensive,
and then we'd have three movies. It was a conveyor belt style of moviemaking."
Ron and Mark didn't invent the one-day wonder, but as far as profits were
concerned, they perfected the medium. In 1980 porn videotapes sold for $100.
By 1990, many tapes sold for five dollars. Carriere may not have caused the
plunge, but he probably made more money from it more than anyone. Unable to
compete, veteran producers Caballero and Western Visuals experienced severe
cash flow problems and went months without paying their bills. They never
recovered.
Mark's enthusiasm for plastic surgery for his porn girls led the genre's
shift from the Golden Age. Through the early 1980s sex performers generally
appeared real. "Girls that Mark built," is how an aide refers to the women
Mark ships off to plastic surgeons to reshape for maximum erotic appeal.
Common changes included breast additions and nose reductions.
Mark's love of "perfecting" femininity extends to his love life. Before
picking up a date, he sent his makeup man ahead to prepare her. Around 1987,
Carriere married performer Tina Marie, forcing her retirement from porn. They
lasted several years before divorcing.
"All women are whores and sluts," says Mark.
In 1987, Indiana's largest porn distributor before Carriere, Burton H.
Gorelick, pled guilty to federal racketeering, conspiracy and tax fraud
charges. He received a five-year prison sentence for such crimes as skimming
at least $560,000 from X-rated drive-in theaters he operated in Indiana and
Ohio.
In October 1989, federal agents seized almost $600,000 kept in safes on the
premises of Carriere's company Multi-Media Distributing in his hometown
Merrillville, Indiana.
In 1991, Mark and his brother Brad were convicted of cheating on their taxes.
They'd kept millions of dollars in cash and two sets of books. The phony one
they presented to the IRS.
Brad committed suicide on June 13, 1991.
Following the 1986 Meese Commission, federal agents traveled to the Bible
Belt to seek obscenity convictions against California pornographers like
Carriere. The definition of obscenity since the Supreme Court's 1973 Miller
ruling has been whether the average person, applying the standards of his
community, finds the work lacks serious value and appeals to prurient
interests. Rural areas tend to have more conservative values than urban ones.
The feds eventually convicted 20 pornographers, sending many to jail, and
collecting millions of dollars in fines.
"It's a holocaust," porn attorney John Weston told the LA Times. He accused
the government of seeking to destroy "an entire genre" of entertainment.
In September 1991, a federal grand jury in Oxford, MS, indicted the owners of
Vivid Video, Steven Hirsch and Dick James, for Interstate Transportation of
Obscenity and conspiracy to avoid taxes. In a plea bargain, Vivid forfeited
$500,000 to the government, and toned down their product.
In late 1991, Russell James Hampshire, along with his company VCA and his
employees Nolan Quan and Don Diekman were charged with Interstate
Transportation of Obscenity. In a plea bargain, Russ served a year in jail
and his company forfeited two million dollars.
In 1992, Carriere and his company agreed to pay $3.5 million in his fines,
which his lawyer called a record, after an obscenity conviction in
Tallahassee, Florida.
At the same time, the government went after Phil Harvey's Adam & Eve company,
porn's largest mail-order business. But instead of copping a plea like his
peers, Phil fought back and won. As federal and local prosecutors devastated
his competition, Harvey moved into the world of softcore cable TV.
"The legal battles facing Curtis and others are just the latest problems to
beset the porn business," wrote the 2/17/91 LA Times. "After a period of
'porn chic' in the early '70s, when hip couples went to X-rated theaters to
see The Devil In Miss Jones the way New York dilettantes used to go to the
Cotton Club in Harlem, pornography has lost its eclat. Twenty years after
Deep Throat helped bring the grimy sex film out of the closet, it is no
longer cool to be seen waiting in line with the raincoat crowd at an X-rated
theater. Feminist critiques of the way women are portrayed have led to
picketing of video stores, and the arrival of AIDS has sent a wave of fear
through…'The Playpen of the Damned.'"
During the 1980s, porn retreated under the aggressive assault of federal
investigators, Christians and feminists. Leading pornographers such as
Gregory Dark and Hal Freeman left the medium to work for mainstream
independent filmmakers. Shooting on film virtually ceased. During 1988 and
'89, the X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) chose to give no award for Best
Film due to the paucity of product. Circulation of sex publications such as
Penthouse plunged when the 7-11 corporation, pressured by the Meese
Commission, decided to stop selling their magazines. From 1988 to 1989,
X-rated tape rentals fell by three million to 395 million, constituting 12%
of all rentals.
One pornographer who suffered keenly from this retrenchment was veteran Teddy
Snyder, who began shooting loops in New York in the late 1960s, including
several starring Eric Edwards and Linda Lovelace.
After moving to Los Angeles with in 1980 with fellow New Yorkers Bobby
Hollander and Bob Genova, Snyder formed a series of production companies
including Video Cassette Recordings (VCR).
Snyder wore gold chains, a gold ring with "Ted" spelled out in diamonds and
cowboy hats. He called most people he met "kid." He drove a Rolls Royce and
took friends flying in his seven-seat airplane. "There was an air of Mafioso"
about him, said one pornographer.
"There are lots of Jewish heavies in the industry," explains writer Wally
Wharton about tough guys like Snyder, "who know that Jewish guys have a wimpy
reputation. And they know that people [in porn] don't necessarily respond to
'I'll sue your pants off,' because these people [porn business owners] can
always file bankruptcy. You can't get blood out of a turnip, right? So
instead, they do the strong-arm thing. 'I'll have your fucking legs broken,
buddy.' A lot of them [Jews in porn] pretend to be Italian [Mafia types].
They affect the tan, gold chains, big collars, steel grey hair and open
shirts."
Porn Jews who wish to appear like Mafiosi include Bobby Hollander and Paul
Norman.
"The Mafia is a comfortable persona to hide behind," says Wally, "because
then you're able to victimize women... It's your job. Genuine Italians like
John Stagliano don't draw on the Mafia phenomenon like the posers do."
Teddy Snyder produced such schlock as the compilation tapes Screaming Desire
and Naked Night. As the porn business turned down in the late '80s, Teddy and
associates made inept ventures into distributing educational tapes for
children, frequently placing porn tapes by mistake into children's box covers.
Snyder worked with the mob his entire career. In 1989, his VCR company owed
thousands of dollars to Martin Taccetta, named in court documents and by
federal prosecutors as an organized crime figure. Martin's older brother
Michael ranks high amongst members of the Lucchese crime family, an Assistant
District Attorney in Newark told the 8/20/89 LA Times. "Martin was his right
hand man who engaged in certain activities outside of New Jersey."
Snyder's VCR was one of several companies that received about $100 thousand
dollars worth of stolen videotape from Martin's company Ollinor Video. Bobby
Genova, Ted's VCR partner, stamped his signature on a $2000 12/29/87 check
from VCR to Marty. Former VCR salesman Joseph Abinanti handled the payroll
for one of Taccetta's companies in Los Angeles. While under surveillance,
Taccetta met several times with Abinanti, whose "godfather," according to law
enforcement ranks near the top of the Luccheses.
Like Bobby Hollander, Ron Sullivan and many pornographers, Snyder was a
cocaine addict. Genova remembers him as a drug-abusing creep who didn't care
about their business.
In early August 1989, Snyder, a vial of cocaine in his hand, was gunned down
on his front lawn in what looked like a Mafia-style hit. His wife Sharon was
later charged but not convicted of hiring the assassin.
Three months pregnant at the time, Sharon said her husband wanted to leave
porn because his customers didn't buy enough. "Maybe people aren't as
perverted as we thought."
Rome's Social and Political Studies Institute declared in 1991 that Italy's
Mafia laundered millions of dollars in profits from criminal activity through
the country's booming multi-billion dollar porn industry.
"Pornography has become a phenomenon which gives ample space to illegality,
profiteering and violence, especially on minors." The report claimed that
organized crime dealt in porn "to recycle illegal profits from prostitution
and in many cases from drugs." Total Italian Mafia proceeds from all activity
was estimated in 1991 at $150 billion dollars year.
An Internal Revenue Service agent who spent most of his adult life
investigating Reuben Sturman finally brought the porn king behind bars. At
age 27, Richard N. Rosfelder Jr. began investigating Sturman in 1975 because
he suspected that Sturman used his elaborate corporate structure to avoid
taxes. And he was right. Reuben skimmed millions of dollars from his peep
machines each year and hid the money in offshore accounts. In his view,
paying taxes was subsidizing the enemy.
After years of detective work, Rosfelder tracked down Sturman's Swiss bank
accounts - and in an unprecedented move, the Swiss government gave the IRS
access to those accounts. The Justice Department gave secret documents to the
Swiss, showing that Sturman worked with organized crime families like the
Gambinos of New York and the De Cavalcantes in New Jersey.
Shortly before his 1985 indictment for tax evasion, Reuben began funneling
his money to Swiss bank accounts through sham corporations. His main Swiss
helper, businessman Edouard Stockli, was arrested and jailed in March 1997.
Sturman delayed his tax trial until 1989 by challenging the legality of the
Justice Department's actions, demanding to see the secret documents given to
the Swiss and denying any connection with the Mafia.
During the late '80s, Sturman verbally sold off his porn holdings, some to
family and friends. Reuben's son David, born around 1952, took over General
Video West, the dominant porn distributor on the West Coast.
In 1989, Reuben and David were found guilty in the tax case. David served
three years. The U.S. Justice Department reached a plea bargain with Reuben
that reduced his prison sentence to four years and assured that Sturman would
not be retried after a Las Vegas jury hung on whether nine tapes Reuben's
company shipped to undercover federal agents were obscene or not. Sturman
also paid a one million-dollar fine.
His jury squirmed in their seats while watching Reuben's tapes of human -
animal sex, torture and the eating of excrement but wouldn't declare the
videos obscene. The tapes came from the huge Talk of the Town bookstore and
its Lacy Bodine catalog of films, described as "not for everybody." At $100
per film, the catalog offered the so-called "Animal Special" series. The
videos showed young women having sex with horses, pigs, ponies, dogs, a cow
and a chicken. One episode portrayed two women dressed as nuns having sex
with each other and a mule.
Three years later, Reuben finally went to Boron Federal Prison in California.
Sturman's lawyer Sanford I. Atkin told him that he'd be able to avoid a long
jail term by bribing his judge David D. Dowd. Atkin offered the $500,000
bribe through Sturman's bodyguard, money collector and hit man, James "Diz"
Long.
Atkin knew that Sturman planned to flee the country but persuaded him to stay
by promising he could arrange to reduce his ten-year sentence to one year.
But the bribe didn't work.
While serving his sentence, Sturman became angry that operators of twelve of
his bookstores failed to kickback to him as verbally agreed. When the owner
of Phoenix's sex shop Pleasure World died in 1990, his widow took over. She
noticed that $1000 monthly payments had been made to a man named Reuben
Sturman but she could find no bill or contract to justify them. So she
stopped paying. Reuben called her to explain the arrangement but she ignored
him. Around Thanksgiving, 1991, Sturman arranged for thugs to smash the
store's video machines. The payments resumed.
Owners of several Chicago sex shops, Paula Lawrence and Roy May supposedly
owed Reuben about $100,000 a month. Sturman sold the stores to them in a
verbal agreement for $35,000 a month and two percent of the gross sales. With
Reuben incarcerated, the operators made payments to the IRS instead of Reuben.
Getting help from Herbert Feinberg aka Mickey Fine, Sturman hired outlaw
bikers from California to smash eight porn shops in Chicago and four in
Milwaukee as payment overdue warnings.
Taking plastic explosives onboard, the bikers flew to Chicago. They drove in
two different vehicles to blow up a selected store. Stray electronic signals
from a traffic light accidentally ignited a bomb in one car, killing one thug
and injuring another. The survivor became a witness for the government
against Sturman who realized that he was going to be convicted of the bombing
conspiracy.
With the aid of a helicopter, Reuben escaped on the night of December 7, 1992
from his low security prison, disappearing into the Mojave Desert. Federal
officials assumed that he'd fled the country and would never be seen again.
But eight weeks later he was found in an apartment near Disneyland.
Within a month of his capture, Sturman was indicted and accused of hiring men
to damage and destroy peep-show booths at bookstores in Cleveland, Chicago
and Phoenix. The jury acquitted him of the bombings, but convicted him of
conspiring to commit extortion through the use of violence.
After deliberating less than two hours, a federal jury in 1994 convicted
Herbert "Mickey" Feinberg of attempted murder through his hiring of four men
to bomb the sex shops.
Because Sturman owes $29 million in back taxes, the IRS seized all his
available assets. "This was the biggest case the IRS criminal division had
ever seen," says Rossfelder. "It's effect on the rest of the porn industry
was monumental. There were a lot of people in this industry reporting nickels
and dimes who now reports hundreds of thousands of dollars."
Reuben's peers abandoned him in his troubles. They didn't bother to call or
write the man who started many of them in their careers. "It's amazing how
everybody turned. Everybody. Unbelievable," Reuben told the Cleveland Plains
Dealer in 1993. "I want to get out of here for only one reason: Because I
want to spit in the face of so many people, just spit in their face... All I
want to do is tell each one what I think of them. Just one time and then I'll
say to them something like, `I hope you rot in hell,' and leave.'"
In September 1995, a mysterious fire virtually leveled the Doc Johnson plant
in North Hollywood. Then someone blew up a bank in the Cayman Islands. Law
enforcement speculates that the two events amounted to a last battle for
control of Sturman's remaining empire. According to insiders, three major
factions fought for control of the porn industry, and the retaliatory bombing
targeted a place where a significant amount of one of the faction's assets
resided. The bombing concluded the struggle, and the three groups - one of
them headquartered in Paris - agreed to divide the international porn market
into equal shares. (What Wild Ecstasy)
In late 1997, Sturman died of a stroke.
His successor at General Video of America, which is headquartered in
Cleveland, is convicted tax evader Melvin Kaminsky aka Mel Kamins. Another
convict, Denver’s Eddie J. Wedelstedt, received most of Reuben's retail store
empire in the late '80s and early '90s.
"Two types of "organized crime" dominate the $8 to $9 billion porn-obscenity i
ndustry," wrote retired FBI agent Bill Kelly in the 8/21/87 Tidings of Los
Angeles. "The first is the one that most people ordinarily think of – the
Mafia. That small group is extremely important in the industry, not by their
numbers, but due to their huge influence.
"The second grouping is non-Mafia, but consists of still highly organized
enterprises which may or may not be closely associated with the Mafia. These
corporations usually possess warehouses of varying size, considerable number
of employees, toll free telephone numbers and often travelling sales people.
And, when these people pander hard core sexually explicit materials found in
a court of law to be legally obscene, they too constitute 'organized crime'."
"The people who put conventional [non-pornography] magazines on the newsstand
and in your drugstore are mostly Mafia front companies," a pornographer in
the late '80s told Dr. Robert Stoller. "That and the vending machine
business. Cigarettes, candy, mobile catering businesses that go around constru
ction sites, these are traditional organized crime business for one good
reason. They do a tremendous volume of cash in small amounts. Organized crime
has lots of cash that it needs to launder from its other businesses: drugs,
prostitution...
"What would you do if you found yourself with $200,000 in $20 bills that you
could not take to the bank? It takes up a lot of room. Can you go out and buy
a house with $20 bills? Not unless you want a visit from the IRS. You can't
even buy a car that way. You've got to figure out a business that takes in a
lot of $20 bills, into which you could stream the $20 bills from your other
business...
"Porn video is perfect... It's done with anonymous consumers through
hole-in-the-wall outlets all over the country. The collection system for the
money is full of holes, so shaky and uneven and complicated and convoluted
that it's impossible for investigators to trace the money that comes through
them back to its source.
"The real money is made in income streaming. They're making their money
laundering through the distribution side. People who make pornographic films
complain endlessly that they never see the money that comes in off them.
"They started in the distribution end and it turned out to be so successful
that they decided to move into production. That's one reason why there's so
much porn being made: they need to put stuff on the shelves so they can show
income."(Porn)
Video's emergence in the '80s changed the Mafia's porn role. No longer could
the mob dominate distribution by simply running adult theaters and peep
shows. In New York, Gotti and Basciano allowed businessmen without ties to
the Mafia to move into retail stores. Immigrant entrepreneurs, particularly
from Israel and Sri Lanka, multiplied X-rated video shops in neighborhoods
from Greenwhich Village to Queens.
"It used to be if you wanted to open a sex shop you'd have to get
permission," said William Daly of the Mayor's Office of Midtown Enforcement.
"Now that the mob has lost muscle, they don't have control of the industry
like they used to."
Daly estimates that New York City's porn industry earned $160 million in 1992.
To increase his profits, Dibernardo's successor Richard Basciano leased his
Times Square buildings to separate corporations under his control to carry
the retail sale of X-rated tapes and toys. He worked with veteran
pornographers Theodore Rothstein and Nathan Grama, both of whom were
convicted for Interstate Transportation of Obscenity in MIPORN.
In 1994, an Israeli porn shop owner told the New York Daily News: "Everything
used to be owned by the Mafia. But in 1986 John Gotti let everybody in."
"The days of Mob influence are gone," claimed a Sri Lankan businessman.
"There's no money in the business for them. Tapes used to be $100 each. Now
they're selling for $3.99."
Sri Lankans worked for Mafia-run sex shops through the 1980s and moved into
ownership when the Mafia left. Already in wholesale electronics, Israelis
entered porn to diversify.
Many shop owners pay a direct tax to the mob, say law enforcement, and all of
them buy their product from mobbed-up porn distributors like General Video of
America.
New York zoning law changes closed most of Times Square's sex shops in the
mid '90s, but Basciano profited as always, selling many of his buildings to
the City. Their relationship goes back decades. In 1977, Show World received
a $65,000 loan from the federal Small Business Administration. In 1989,
officials with David Dinkins' mayoral campaign paid tens of thousands of
dollars to rent office space from Richard.
The Italian-American ultimately responsible for convicting John Gotti and who
led the government's onslaught against organized crime, Rudolph Giulani,
became on January 2nd, 1994, the 107th mayor of New York. He then led New
York City's crackdown on the sex industry, taking on the likes of Mafia
associates Martin Hodas and Richard Basciano. In a series of court cases,
Mayor Giulani defeated his pornographer and civil libertarian opponents, and
pushed ahead with his clean up of Times Square.
The strip in midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth Avenues called "the
Deuce" used to be lined by porn theaters but now the area seems safe for
families. Gone are most of the peep shows, prostitutes and three-card-Monte
scam artists.
Maria Alvarado coordinates tourism services for the Times Square Business
Improvement District. "One summer, when I was about to give birth to my first
child, I came down to have lunch with my husband, who worked on 43rd and
Sixth. I took the E train, so I had to walk down 42nd. Here I was, eight
months pregnant, and I was offered everything from sex to cocaine."
In 1978 more than twice as many street crimes were reported on the block as
on any other block in the entire city. In 1984 the city planning-commission
chair said that 42nd "is the one street where the city has lost control."
Walt Disney Company numbers among the new merchants. Its wholesome image is
everything Times Square was not.
After two decades of abandoned plans, stalled construction and expensive
lawsuits, Times Square's makeover is "one of the great success stories of
20th century urban America," says Brendan Sexton, president of the Municipal
Art Society.
"New York City's government is acting against the pollution of the social
atmosphere," wrote George Will in the 11/11/96 edition of Newsweek. "The city
says those effects [of pornography] include decreased property values,
retarded economic development, damage to neighborhood character and to
children. And when such businesses are clustered, there is increased illegal
sexual activities and other crime, as well as loitering and littering and
other nuisances. The new zoning law will disperse such businesses...
"The pornographers say that precisely probing the various secondary effects
is problematic. However, precision should not be necessary. One does not need
a moral micrometer to gauge that the sex industry turned Times Square into a
slum...
"Selling pornography is not a crime, but by catering to, and inflaming,
vulgarians' sensibilities, it contributes to the coarsening of the culture
which erodes civility."
Almost all representatives of traditional values believe porn does to
individuals what it supposedly did to Times Square - turn them into sewers.
Politicians, civic leaders, citizen groups, the religious and law enforcement
overwhelmingly agree that sex shops increase crime and deteriorate
neighborhoods. Though the secular elite in academia, media and law usually
disagree with these claims, few of them want to live in areas close to sex
shops.
Columnist Don Boyett served on The Orlando Sentinel's editorial board for
years. He remembers property owners pleading for support to clean up South
Orange Blossom Trail, filled with crime, strip joints and porn shops. Their
primary interest: crime and plummeting property values.
"Drive into Seminole County from the south on U.S. Highway 17-92 and what is
the first thing that hits you? A large billboard advertising a nude bar's
clothing boutique…
"Next thing you notice are blaring signs in front of scrub parlors, nudie
bars and clearly non-family video shops.
"Is this the sort of seedy community you would invest in? Would that picture
cause you to say, 'Hey, I'd like to live in this community'?
"Those who live and own traditional businesses in that area now are
concerned. It's not just property values. They know porn brings drugs; drugs
bring other crimes. Most people don't want to live near enterprises
considered sordid. Not even the owners of those businesses live next door."
(Sentinel 7/4/97)
At the end of the 20th Century, zoning restrictions against sex shops remain
a favorite weapon of local governments trying to reduce crime and clean up
their communities.
Ken Guarino, who dined with John Gotti in 1992, ranks among porn's most
powerful. Lucky to avoid MIPORN conviction, Ken controls one of the four main
producers of sex videos along with Vivid, VCA and Leisure Time. Owner of the
North Star distributorship, the Italian-American took over Intropics and Cal
Vista Video, revived dormant lines like Paradise Visuals and Soho Video and
added a magazine publication company to create, wrote AVN in 1994 "the
closest thing to vertical integration in the entertainment industry, period."
Majority owner of the porn conglomerate South Pointe Enterprises, Inc., the
corporate parent of Metro Home Video, Guarino sent his company public in 1994
"to become more acceptable" by buying an inactive corporate shell rather than
using the traditional method of a public offering.
An expert corporate shell shuffler, Guarino, like Sturman, Mohney and Milton
Luros, spends his considerable talents creating dummy corporations and
business spider webs to launder mob money, avoid taxes and set up large
offshore savings accounts.
Adult Video News gushed about the mobbed-up company's NASDAQ listing in its
10/94 issue: "...no move in industry history; no television interview or
personal appearance; no post-adult career of an actress or actor; no court
victory; no business success or humanitarian gesture; does more to promote
the social and legal acceptance of adult entertainment than the simple act of
placing South Pointe on the same legal and financial level as thousands of
other public companies that provide jobs, make products and provide services
to the consuming and investing public."
Through his skillful selling of pornography, Harry Mohney improved upon a
$2,000 income in 1966 to become a millionaire by 1970, and eventually one of
the three most powerful American pornographers. And like his peers, he
devised elaborate schemes to cheat on taxes. Convicted in the late '80s, he
eventually served three years in prison. Upon release, he resumed control of
his rapidly expanding sex businesses that include the Déjà Vu strip club
chain. Harry's thought to own considerable amounts of the porn industry as
well but his holdings are hard to measure due to his devious ways.
By mid-1996, federal prosecutors had either on trial or under indictment almos
t all persons reputed to be underworld members and associates in the porn
industry. Some of the thugs got away, others didn’t.
Law enforcement lost a big federal obscenity case against the Perainos-owned
AFV Releasing in Las Vegas in the summer of 1996. After two hours of
deliberations, the jury acquitted Louis and Joseph Peraino of obscenity and
racketeering charges. Defense attorney Dominic Gentile says the government
has been out to get the Perainos since 1972 when "Deep Throat brought the
dirty movie business out from the underground and into the sunshine. The
government hoped to drive it back underground with this conviction." Gentile
says the prosecution was a last vestige of the late-1980s onslaught against
several Los Angeles pornographers.
Charges pended against Northridge resident Anthony Peraino when he died at
age 80 in October 1996. The Perainos sold AFV Releasing later in the year to
Las Vegas pornographer Ray Pistol.
In September 1996, Ken Guarino’s North Star Distributors plead guilty in Las
Vegas District Court to a federal charge of obscenity. As part of the deal,
the government dismissed charges against Guarino personally and Salvatore
Richichi.
In November 1996, a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida
sentenced Salvatore’s father Natale to six years in prison for his
convictions of racketeering and extortion. The Florida case demonstrated the
infiltration of the Mafia into the strip bar industry in Florida and
neighboring states.
To Bill Kelly and many law enforcement officers, the government since Bill
Clinton became president, hasn’t prosecuted pornographers with enough energy.
Kelly wrote in the spring 1997 issue of Morality in Media about South
Florida, which symbolizes the state of the nation in this regard. "…Obscenity
matters are either in a low-priority or no-priority condition, with neither
law enforcement nor prosecutors moving these cases forward. While most
Federal and state courts have held that the judge or jury in an obscenity
case must acquit if the particular hardcore video is "accepted" by the
community, it would appear that in much of South Florida, the test being used
by prosecutors is whether porn is "tolerated" by the community – a test that
has little if anything to do with "standards of decency" and that clearly
favors the porn merchants."
Patrick Trueman served under President Bush as chief of the U.S. Justice
Department's Exploitation and Obscenity section. "I maintain the war is over.
The pornographer has won."
During the late '80s and early '90s, federal agents launched a series on
pornographers, culminating in more than 20 convictions, prison sentences and
millions of dollars in fines.
"These businesses in Los Angeles know they can ship around the country
because no one is coming after them," said Trueman, now director of
government affairs for the American Family Association, an anti-porn group
based in Tupelo, Miss. "If you don't bring the cases, then you, Mr. U.S.
Attorney are setting the community standard - and the community standard is
anything goes."
In its 7-22-96 issue, Insight magazine revealed that Trueman's handpicked
assistant George Burgasser probably gave confidential Justice Department
documents to star pornography lawyer Arthur Schwartz, wrecking the
Department's huge Blue Darcy case against Houston pornographers and leading
to the murder of a porn informant. Insight also showed how Trueman and
Burgasser saw to it that a Justice Department attorney who sought to have the
leaks investigated, was harassed and demoted.
In January 1997, Guarino and Natale Richichi plead guilty to charges of
conspiracy to defraud the government. Had the case proceeded to trial, the
government said in the Memoranda of Plea Agreement that it would have
presented evidence that Richichi is a "capo in the Gambino crime family of
Cosa Nostra" and that Guarino made "tribute payments" to Richichi for
protection of his multi-million dollar pornography empire against extortion
attempts by other factions of the Mafia. By signing the agreements, Guarino
and Richichi acknowledged that "each understood the factual basis for his
plea.
"Unlike most [captains] who can only deal with the boss of their family
through an adviser, and who would not be in a position to advise higher
ranking members of other La Cosa Nostra families, Richichi has dealt directly
with John Gotti…
"…He has also been intercepted providing extensive advice to Frank Salemme
Jr., the boss of the New England La Cosa Nostra family. Richichi is also
known to be highly respected by other La Cosa Nostra families and (captains)
of various La Cosa Nostra families who reside in the Las Vegas area appear to
give Richichi deference as well."
Ken paid Natalie Richichi, a confidante of John Gotti, and his son Salvatore
$15,000 a month and laundered millions of dollars for them to prevent
invasion of his porn empire, to get permission from the New England branch of
Cosa Nostra to operate a precious metals business in the Northeast and to use
their influence with union officials for favorable treatment.
In April 1997, Guarino was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison and fined
$250,000. A favorite target of the feds, Mark Carriere may be the richest and
most hated man in porn, the only pornographer consistently described by his
peers as "evil." Mark so cowers persons in Porn Valley that none are willing
to go on the record with their allegations about him which include the
wildest and cruelest deeds you can imagine.
Mark Carriere owned Video Exclusives before shutting it down and starting up
Leisure Time, which he values at $60 million. He's willing to sell it for $30
million but no one wants to pay that much for a porn business.
For the first time since 1990, Mark doesn't have criminal charges hanging
over his head. In February 1996 a federal judge sentenced Carriere to three
years probation, 2400 hours of community service and a fine of $850,000 for
interstate transportation of obscene material. Carriere also agreed to donate
$250,000 to three children's charities.
Mark may have avoided jail time by squealing to the feds about veteran New
York pornographer Ted Rothstein. Al Goldstein broke the news in his Screw
Magazine, 7/15/96.
"He [Carriere] caved in to [that] pressure and delivered to the FBI a true
prize: Teddy Rothstein, a pivotal figure in the distribution of adult
material nationwide."
Rothstein's attorney, Paul Cambria of Buffalo, says that the testimony
Carriere gave the government was untrue.
"He made up things about Teddy Rothstein so he could escape going to jail."
At the end of the 20th Century, the fight over sexual entertainment rages
fiercely. While federal prosecutors under Clinton have shown little interest
in the fray, veteran porn busters like Larry Parrish, who prosecuted Deep
Throat, and Bruce Taylor, who prosecuted Sturman in Cleveland, devote their
considerable talents to assisting local law enforcement protect "decency."
Taylor formed the nationwide National Law Center which assists local
prosecutors with their "obscenity" trials. In 1996, Parrish moved to Memphis
with funding from a local church. Working in conjunction with the District
Attorney, he filed charges of obscenity and racketeering against all of the
city’s topless bars.
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Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
All My Relations.
Omnia Bona Bonis,
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End

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CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing!  These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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