As reported at avn.com

News Analysis: More Evidence Of The Federal Anti-Porn Conspiracy
By: Mark Kernes
Posted: 10:00 am PST 3-14-2007


WASHINGTON - The United States has been rocked for the past couple of weeks over the firing of seven U.S. Attorneys (USAs) from their districts around the country, but according to the New York Times, at least two of those firings were apparently due to the USAs' failure to get on board the administration's anti-pornography train.

"In rating the prosecutors, Mr. Sampson [Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff] factored in whether they 'exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general,' according to documents released by the Justice Department," Times reporters David Johnson and Eric Lipton wrote. "In one e-mail message, Mr. Sampson questioned a colleague about the record of the federal prosecutor in San Diego, Carol C. Lam. Referring to the office of the deputy attorney general, Mr. Sampson wrote: 'Has ODAG ever called Carol Lam and woodshedded her re immigration enforcement? Has anyone?' Ms. Lam was one of the seven fired prosecutors."

Most tellingly, however, the story continued, "Two others, Paul K. Charlton in Arizona and Daniel K. Bogden in Nevada, were faulted as being 'unwilling to take good cases we have presented to them,' according to another e-mail message to Mr. Sampson, referring to pornography prosecutions." [Emphasis added]

It is almost beyond dispute that most if not all of the fired attorneys were targeted either because they were perceived as disloyal to the Bush administration, or that they failed to pursue indictments against Democratic politicians and other prominent Democrats in their districts. David Iglesias of New Mexico, for instance, has testified that he believes he was let go after refusing to indict – or at least refusing to disclose existing indictments against – local Democrats in a high-profile corruption scandal just before the November election, where incumbent Rep. Heather Wilson was in a close race against a Democratic opponent.

It is therefore not far-fetched to think that the federal indictments obtained in Arizona last May against 5-Star Distribution and JM Productions, for materials sent by 5-Star to federal agents in Virginia, were yet another attempt to pander to the administration theocon supporters.

"I think it certainly plays to their religious base," opined prominent First Amendment attorney Luke Lirot, "because unfortunately, people of that ilk, as long as the government's fighting pornography, everything else in the world is rosy, which is just an indication of how truly misguided those people actually are. 'As long as we're cleaning up pornography, everything else will fall into place', and that's just insane. It's a waste of resources and it has absolutely no beneficial impact on any aspect of our society."

It is almost always the case that the U.S. Attorney in a particular area is better able to assess the situation "on the ground" regarding a particular type of crime or prosecution than are his/her superiors in Washington. Hence, the fact that San Diego-based USA Carol Lam felt that her time was better spent investigating and prosecuting corrupt politicians like Reps. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Jerry Lewis rather than chasing illegal immigrants, despite the administration's intense interest in the immigration issue, gave Sampson the excuse he needed to fire her – and of course, the fact that Lam was pursuing Republican crooks simply made her that much more of a juicy target.

"Absolutely, there's no question about it," Lirot agreed. "I think this is indicative of the desperation and political pressure that's coming to bear as part of that so-called political capital that the Bush administration acquired and apparently still thinks is intact in spite of the dramatic trouncing of that same idea in the last election."

"These U.S. Attorneys that have been replaced obviously know their communities' standards," he continued, "but more importantly they probably have a much better idea of the priorities of their individual jurisdictions, and I think this attempt is really nothing more than the Bush administration, through the Attorney General's office, trying to distract people from the dismal state of affairs brought on by the absolute travesty in Iraq and the fact that the bottom is starting to show evidence of falling out of the economy."

The administration may well have thought that porn indictments in Arizona would be a slam-dunk, considering the attempts by Phoenix politicians to stamp out swing clubs in that city, and Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio's hard-line "law and order" stance, which had banned porn possession and smoking by prison inmates, who were also forced to live in tents in 100 degree heat. They may also have recalled the successful prosecutions in Las Vegas in the early '90s of the Peraino family, which had owned Arrow Film & Video.

But swinging is not porn, and the community standards in the metropolitan areas of Nevada and Arizona have changed significantly in the last decade, such that it now would undoubtedly be much more difficult to obtain federal obscenity convictions there – and the U.S. Attorneys in those districts would have been in the best positions to know that.

Some have voiced doubt about the Bush administration's dedication to prosecuting adult business owners; the firing of two U.S. Attorneys because they would not go along with the government's anti-porn agenda should put an end to such doubts.

Yawn. I'm no fan of Bush, but this is really much ado about nothing. The administration sets the policy and agenda for law enforcement and the USA's dance to that tune or get kicked off the floor. Clinton fired ALL the USA's during his term. It happens.

I feel bad for JM. I'm sure they're not surprised that the conservatives have no love lost for the adult inustry.

The various attorneys general serve "at the pleasure of the POTUS." Meaning: they are functionally political appointees of the executive branch. The various attorneys general merely set the agenda for their district's law enforcement; most of the litigators are non-political appointees, and aren't replaced by changes in executive power.

Didn't Clinton fire *all* of them at one point to put in his people?

Not going along with the adminstration's policies is one thing. Letting corrupt Republican politicians off the hook is another.

Under Clinton in one case in NJ, nearly the entire Democratic machine of Hudson County was indicted with the main players going off to jail. And, these were big supporters of Clinton. Those USA's didn't get "the can".

EDIT:

That's politics. But, he didn't fire ALL of them. I know a USA in KY whose a staunch Christian Republican who kept his job. But, those firing happened at the beginning of his administration after 12 years of Republican political appointments. Not those whose performance was rated highly by the "firing" administration just prior to their being dropped.

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No, that's not been true of US Attorneys in the past. I'm pretty sure by tradition they don't get replaced with each new election.

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JRV is right. There is no such tradition, but it has happened before - sometimes in different ways than others. In 1972 Richard Nixon "requested" [read FORCED] every appointed official to resign after his re-election and, if they liked, re-apply for their jobs. There in fact was a bit of turn-over.

During the 12 years of Reagan/Bush I, there was a concerted effort to bring in "ideaologues" into the Justice Department. Clinton decided to exercise his right and clean house. However, many who were highly qualified were retained/rehired.

Part of this was the practice of reaching out to the Senate members of the States involved. So the KY Reagan appointee I know, who had a stellar record and had a Rep Senator as his "rabbi" never left his post. A small reasons that there was less furvor over Clinton's move was that many Senators regained their influence in "recommending" appointments. Under R/B I, they required that any loyalty be directly to the President so they often went over the Senators' heads.

The problem here isn't a question of Bush having the right to fire them, it's WHEN and WHY that are at issue. Even Republican Senators are concerned.

I always think that if an action is reasonable that the WHEN and WHY can be easily explained So, let's get those answers.


btw, Clinton, for whom I was an alternate NJ delegate in 1992, was no leftist ideologue. He appointed Republicans into every agency, passed NAFTA and executed a retard in Arkansas.

I couldnt say anything about this but it looks like I dont need to. Mark Kernes at avn.com is on the ball.

Attorney Says Justice Dept. Sold Same 'Obscene' Material As His Client
By: Mark Kernes
Posted: 5:30 pm PST 3-15-2007

TEMPE, Ariz. - AVN noted Wednesday that one of the interesting aspects of the recent Justice Department (DOJ) firing of several U.S. Attorneys was that two of them – Paul Charlton of the District of Arizona and Dan Bogden of the District of Nevada – were canned because they were "unwilling to take good [obscenity] cases" that had been presented to them by the Justice Department's obscenity unit. That unit is currently being run by former U.S. Attorney of Utah Brent Ward.

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But as we were examining some of the documents in the one obscenity case that Charlton did file – United States v. Five Star Video, LC, et al – an interesting coincidence leapt out ... and it's one that the Justice Department may have found so embarrassing that Charlton's firing may simply have been another casualty in the cover-up surrounding it.

The document in question was a Motion to Dismiss filed by Richard Hertzberg, attorney for Five Star and others, on Aug. 31, 2006. Note the date, because it's significant. The Five Star defendants have been under indictment since last May 23rd for selling four sexually-explicit DVDs, all manufactured or distributed by JM Productions, to FBI agents perpetrating a sting operation based in Virginia. Five Star has one retail outlet and an Internet sales division, both located in Tempe.

But Five Star isn't the biggest or best-known adult retailer in Arizona. That honor goes to the Castle Boutique, part of the Castle Megastore chain, which currently consists of 19 adult stores in several states.

A few years ago, the Castle Megastores had financial problems, and eventually declared bankruptcy, along with another adult distribution company called Dexter Distributing. While undergoing reorganization under the U.S. bankruptcy laws, Castle has been and continues to be, according to Hertzberg's motion, "under the supervision of the U.S. Trustee's Office of the Department of Justice, and the United States Bankruptcy Court of the District of Arizona."

"During its tenure in bankruptcy," the Motion continues, "it purchased from wholesalers, and sold and rented, multiple copies of the four indicted titles in this case. Evidence adduced at the hearing will reveal that Castle ordered and sold:

"29 copies of the herein-indicted item Filthy Things 6 in 2005 and 2006;

"16 copies of the herein-indicted item Gag Factor 15 in 2004 and 2005;

"30 copies of the herein-indicted item Gag Factor 18 in 2005;

"50 copies of the herein-indicted item American Bukake 13 in 2003 and 2004.

"It is believed that Castle also rented out the indicted items. Although the shelf-life of the four indicted items had expired by the time these indictments came down, Castle was, after the indictment in this case, still selling one of the indicted items — Filthy Things 6. An investigator working for Defendants' lawyer was able to purchase one from Castle's store at 8802 N. Black Canyon, Phoenix, Arizona on May 28, 2006 and one from Castle's store at 21815 N. 26th Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona on June 1, 2006."

In other words, while U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton was busy indicting Five Star and JM and their employees for interstate transportation of obscene materials – "obscene" under the community standards of the District of Arizona – trustees employed by the U.S. Department of Justice were selling and had sold those exact same titles ... and not just in Arizona, but had also shipped those titles to other Castle stores in Oregon and Washington state.

To say the least, this presents the U.S. Attorney's office in Arizona with a problem: How can it legitimately argue that the four features under indictment violate Arizona's community standards for obscenity when other stores in the same state, all under the control of U.S. government employees, have been selling those same features – and in two instances, sold one of the features in two different locations several days after the indictment came down?

But Hertzberg's motion takes that concept a step further, arguing that under the law, because of Castle's sales of the material, the Justice Department is legally barred ("estopped") from claiming at trial that the four features violated community standards.

"The U.S. Trustee's office accepted the benefit of the sale and rental of the herein-indicted items, because it received payment from the Castle bankruptcy in substantial amounts at a time when Castle was acquiring money by selling the allegedly illegal items," Hertzberg wrote. "The U.S. Trustee of the DOJ and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, having acquiesced in Castle selling multiple copies of the indicted items, should be estopped to claim that they exceed community standards... Under the doctrine of quasi estoppel the government is estopped to claim that the community standards are anything other than those Castle is being operated under."

One can only imagine the consternation Charlton must have felt when he received a copy of Hertzberg's motion on or shortly after Aug. 31. Did he immediately call Brent Ward, complaining that he'd been hung out to dry when, after filing obscenity charges that the Bush administration had been pushing him (and other U.S. Attorneys) to do, he finds that government representatives have been selling the indicted materials in another store just a few miles away? Did he tell Ward that, under the official Canons of Ethics, he (Charlton) could hardly argue to a jury, even if the court denied Hertzberg's estoppel motion, that the indicted features violated Arizona's community standards when government agents had been selling them for years?

We may never know if Charlton and Ward had such a conversation, or what was said during it ... but we do know one thing: On Sept. 20, just three weeks after Hertzberg filed his motion, Ward sent an e-mail to Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff. Titled "Obscenity cases," Ward wrote, "We have two U.S. Attorneys who are unwilling to take good cases we have presented to them. They are Paul Charlton in Phoenix (this is urgent) and Dan Bogden in Las Vegas. In light of the AG's [Attorney General's] comments at the NAC to 'kick butt and take names', what do you suggest I do? Do you think at this point that these names should go through channels to reach the AG, or is it enough for me to give the names to you? If you want to act on what I give you, I will be glad to provide a little more context for each of the two situations."

"This is urgent"! Considering that there was only one federal obscenity case in the District of Arizona, what involving "obscenity cases" could possibly have impelled Ward to write to Gonzales' chief of staff requesting that Charlton be removed urgently?

We also know, from examining records produced several days ago by the Justice Department in response to requests from the Senate Judiciary Committee, that Charlton was not on the original list of attorneys to be fired that was sent by Sampson to chief White House Counsel Harriet Miers on March 2, 2005, nor Sampson's memo to Miers of Jan. 1, 2006, but he does show up as a "Tier 1" replacement in what appears to be Miers' response to Sampson dated Feb. 10, 2006. Charlton is missing, though, from the list in a Sampson memo of April 14 to Dabney Friedrich.

Of the documents produced, Charlton's main "claim to fame" is as the subject of a July 26 e-mail from Rachel Brand, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, wherein Brand discusses Charlton's policy of only prosecuting marijuana smuggling cases where the amount involved is 500 pounds or above, though there are various exceptions to that policy. Nothing in the memo mentions obscenity cases, however.

As of a Sept. 13 e-mail from Justice Department spokesperson Monica Goodling to Kyle Sampson, though, Charlton is back on the list of "USAs [U.S. Attorneys] We Now Should Consider Pushing Out," along with four other fired attorneys, and heads the (alphabetical) list on the Nov. 15 "Plan For Replacing Certain United States Attorneys."

Because at least one of the U.S. senators from the state where a U.S. Attorney has resigned or been fired has historically been consulted as to that person's replacement, the Bush administration, which had planned to choose its own replacements, discussed with DOJ's Sampson some strategies for not offending such senators. To that end, Sampson apparently drew up the five-step Nov. 15 Plan, which included a warning that the U.S. Attorney and his "home state Senator" should be informed of the firing "simultaneously", and in a section titled "Prepare to Withstand Political Upheaval," listed several excuses that should be used to respond to "[d]irect and indirect appeals of the Administration's determination to seek these resignations" – again, with the admonition that, "Recipients of such 'appeals' must respond identically." Boilerplate scripts were supplied.

Charlton's "home state Senator" was Republican Jon Kyl, who most recently has been in the news as the sole senatorial objector to a bill that would reverse the section of last year's PATRIOT Act amendments which allowed the Justice Department a free hand in appointing replacement U.S. Attorneys. Could that have anything to do with the circumstances under which Charlton was fired? Only time (possibly) will tell.

In any case, however, when it came to deciding who would inform the home state Senator that the U.S. Attorney had been fired, Attorney General Gonzales himself was designated to speak to Kyl, while all other firings were delegated either to Harriet Miers or someone in the White House's Office of Political Affairs. Could this have anything to do with Charlton's apparently having been fired over the Five Star case? We may never know.

As of this writing, the Five Star case has not been dismissed, although the original judge assigned to the case has recused himself, and at least one staff attorney at the Justice Department has either quit her involvement the case or been involuntarily reassigned.

The questions surrounding the official reactions – or overreactions – to Hertzberg's Aug. 31 Motion to Dismiss, however, will not go away, and hopefully, the Senate Judiciary Committee will take a hard look at the circumstances of Paul Charlton's firing ... and possibly also at the Bush administration's obsession with mounting federal obscenity cases even when local U.S. Attorneys think they're unwinnable.

Jeff, I am truly ashamed of you!!! JM Prod in league with the Bush Administration! You DOGS are the "Halliburton of Porn"!

Here is a copy of the e-mail from Brent Ward to Kyle Sampson.

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My post: Part of this was the practice of reaching out to the Senate members of the States involved. ... Under R/B I, they required that any loyalty be directly to the President so they often went over the Senators' heads.

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Article: Because at least one of the U.S. senators from the state where a U.S. Attorney has resigned or been fired has historically been consulted as to that person's replacement, the Bush administration, which had planned to choose its own replacements, discussed with DOJ's Sampson some strategies for not offending such senators.

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Just to reinforce my argument of why Clinton got so little real flak for his round of firings. Bush II is attempting not to repeat "the sins of the past" and thus a possible Dem replacement "cleaning house" in 2008.

I HATE the fuck Gonzalez, btw.

The best part of all this Jeff is that the same "estoppel" argument works for JM!!



Congrats! I hope it holds up.

"Brent" is such a cracker-jack lawyer that he mangled the exact legal names of the corporate defendants on the original indictment, nice attention to detail there.

It's an interesting argument. The government's likely resposnse will be that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court does not profit or lose when it acts on behalf of a petitioner, at least not on a cash basis--you could argue that keeping a distressed business from being liquidated provides annuitized tax revenue in the future. If the Trustee succeeds in rehabilitating a distressed business, the resulting income (expense) is written to the books of the petitioner, not the government. At most, the Bankruptcy Court has a right to be compensated for court and administrative costs.

I don't think "profit" is the real issue. Under their supervision the business sold the very same "obscene" products AFTER others were accused of selling items as obscenities. [and I presume after they charge JM with making them].


Why were the titles still on the shelves and sold after the charges were filed?

How can the defendants be expected to "know" that these are obscene when the DoJ seems not to?

Why aren't those responsible for the "bankrupt" business charged as well?

Doesn't this point to the fact that even they can't determine what an "obscenity" is?

Etc.

I'm no lawyer, but these are good questions/arguments to raise to jury - if not to get the case dismissed. All you need is one juror to buy it.

The government was not running the business, it was supervising it and in the context of bankruptcy it was simply making sure the business was operating in a financially reasonable way. Even in the 9th circuit which leans so far to the left it might as well lie down, there's no way the DOJ will be estopped from its case. Its embarrasing, nothing more.

+1 for the effort though.

Maybe I'm imagining this, but wasn't there a case a while back where the Gov't ran a legal whorehouse in Nevada for a time after it was seized for tax evasion? I seem to recall they had some trouble finding a buyer. Late '80s, early '90s, I think it was.

And it just figures that DoJ's Anti-Obscenety chief is the former USA for Utah.

I was initially skeptical, but I now have to agree something is seriously wrong here. According to this article Patrick Fitzgerald was targeted as a mediocre prosecutor. Fitzgerald Targeted Too WTF? No one who is intimate with his reputation could dream of saying that Fitz is anything less than the cream of the crop. The bottom line is that the administration is looking for rubber stamps. Thats within their perogative, I'm just not sure its a very good idea.

Looks like Nation Magazine gave JM a plug!

The Porn Plot Against Prosecutors

According to the source, Ward's accusation against Charlton stems from a case he filed in June 2006. That month, Ward ordered Charlton to prosecute Five Star Video, an adult video store that registered on Ward's radar when it mailed copies of the DVD's Gag Factor 18, Filthy Things 6, Gag Factor 15, and American Bukkake 13 to customers across state lines. Charlton agreed to take the case, but as the source told me, Ward implored him to attach an additional US Attorney to it. Concerned about wasting the already limited resources at his disposal on a case of dubious value, Charlton hesitated. Despite his misgivings, he assigned the additional prosecutor--a key fact missing from the White House e-mails.

Ward's endless stream of mandates, the source revealed, were a source of frustration to many US Attorneys. "There were countless child obscenity cases crying out to be prosecuted," the source told me, "but [Brent] Ward wanted to focus on cases involving consenting adults. That's just not a good way of dedicating resources. When you have so many children being harmed, why not allocate your resources towards that?"

Ward's heedless prosecutions of legally available pornography reflected more than his ideology; they also defined his power within the Justice Department. Once Bush began his second term in the White House, Gonzales declared the prosecution of pornography portraying sex acts between consenting adults "one of the top priorities" of his department. He signed off on an FBI headquarters memo that recruited agents for an anti-porn task force. That memo stated that prosecutions would focus particularly on material depicting "bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior." These acts, according to the memo, were most likely to offend local juries.

The problem I have is calling this a "conspiracy" or "plot" as people are doing. Its within the power of the executive to treat the USA's as fluffers. Though not advisable. Calling out a politician for acting like a politician is like yelling at a whore for giving a blowjob.

I'm amazed anyone is surprised by this. Okay, so we have actual proof of, if not wrong-doing, then very shady business. But surely when you're elected into office, the very first thing you do is ensure that all the way down the line you have people in place to green light your policies and ideals.

As Moxie says, it's inadvisable, but it's not surprising given the current administration. I would have been more surprised if something like this hadn't come to light.

More from avn.com



News Analysis: Is The Obscenity Task Force A Failure?
By: Mark Kernes
Posted: 4:00 am PST 3-23-2007


WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Bush has famously said that when it comes to prosecuting the war in Iraq, he would listen to what his generals on the ground have to say, and abide by their advice. Of course, he hasn't done that – and oddly enough, it turns out that his commanders in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have failed to heed the advice of their "generals" on the ground as well.



On Friday, the DOJ released more than 3,000 pages of e-mails regarding the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys (USAs). Political activists – not to mention staffs of senators and representatives on their houses' respective judiciary committees – are rapidly sorting through all the data, trying to figure out just what did motivate the DOJ – specifically, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his deputy Kyle Sampson – to replace the well-performing USAs. In the process, document analysts have come across some startling revelations, not the least of which is this statement from Brent Ward, the current head of the Obscenity Enforcement Task Force, to Matthew Friedrich, Chief of Staff and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department's Criminal Division:

"It has now been more than 10 months since I arrived here," Ward wrote on Aug. 29, 2006. "In that time two cases have been indicted. Only one of them was initiated by the FBI. In light of this the Task Force would have to be considered a failure so far." [Emphasis added]

(The "two cases" to which Ward refers would be U.S. v. Five Star Video and JM Productions, and perhaps the Texas tax/obscenity case U.S. v. Wedelstedt. U.S. v. Extreme Associates would have been before Ward's tenure, and U.S. v. Karen Fletcher was filed after the date of this email.)

According to the emails, Ward saw the failure as traceable to both the USAs in the field and to the FBI, both of which, he claimed, were refusing to follow the investigation and prosecution strategies developed in Washington.

"If we can't resolve it soon," Ward wrote to Friedrich, "the difficulty of getting USA [U.S. Attorney] cooperation in key districts is going to lead to a showdown with the FBI. Once the FBI realized that CDCA ["Central District of California" – likely referring to Debra W. Yang, the U.S. Attorney for that area, who "resigned" in October, 2006 to join a Los Angeles law firm] straight-armed us on our Orange County case (which has been hanging for 4-5 months) and once the WFO SAC [Washington Field Office Special Agent in Charge] and I sat in a meeting with Paul Charlton in Phoenix and heard him thumb his nose at us, the Bureau knew this obscenity initiative could be heading for disaster."

AVN.com has spoken to several attorneys familiar with adult industry prosecutions, and none were willing to hazard a guess as to what company the "Orange County case" referred to, but clearly, Ward's meeting with Charlton would have had to do with the Five Star/JM case which had been filed the previous May. The timing of Ward's email – Aug. 29 – may have been coincidental, but recalling that Richard Hertzberg's Motion to Dismiss the Five Star indictment was filed on Aug. 31, and that he may have communicated the contents of the motion to Charlton – that Hertzberg had evidence that a government-run store had been selling the indicted videos at the same time that Five Star had – before that filing, Charlton's conveyance of that same information to Ward may have been the basis for Ward saying that Charlton had "thumb[ed] his nose at us."

"I definitely think that that is a likely inference of what happened," said Jennifer Kinsley, who along with H. Louis Sirkin represents some of the Five Star defendants. "We highly suspect that is what happened."

Ward's email continued its speculation that because of Yang's and Charlton's recalcitrance, the FBI went into "defensive mode."

"They are now doing only a very minimal amount of spade work on a case before sending me a '60-day letter' giving me 60 days to secure USA cooperation to prosecute or the case will be closed," Ward wrote. "These 60-day letters are now piling up."

Certainly, the Justice Department under the Bush administration would like nothing better than to put every adult company, both Web-based and brick-and-mortar, out of business, but again, it would only be speculation as to which companies were the subjects of the 60-day letters that were "piling up." However, a "pile" suggests that there were more than five or six "cases" that Ward thought were worth pursuing.

To his email to Friedrich, Ward attached copies of correspondence he had had with the U.S. Attorney for Nevada, Daniel Bogden, wherein Ward had set up a meeting between himself, Bogden, Matthew Buzzelli, an Obscenity Prosecution Task Force attorney and several FBI agents to "discuss a case we wish to present to you."

Again, none of the industry attorneys were willing to guess to which Nevada-based production company or retailer Ward was referring, but whichever it was, Bogden's response to Ward essentially said that the Nevada U.S. Attorney's office was too understaffed to handle it.

"I want to again reiterate my position, though, as to our severe manning and personnel shortages in the USAO [U.S. Attorney's Office], District of Nevada," Bogden wrote. "During our telephone conversation, you made a comment about this being some type of 50/50 split on manning and personnel, if our district were to accept such a case for prosecution. I told you then that such an arrangement is highly unlikely as we simply do not have available manning or personnel for such a working arrangement. Since our telephone conversation, our personnel situation has become more critical. We will be willing to meet and hear you ... out and review your case presentation but we have very limited capacity to undertake such a prosecutive matter with what we currently have going on in our office and district."

At that time, according to an Associated Press article, Bogden's prosecutorial staff, which usually numbered 40, was short eight attorneys, and was then preparing for the first phase of a trial for 42 members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club on racketeering charges as well as the corruption trial of a former Clark County commissioner in the Galardi bribery case, which involved coordination between the Nevada and Southern California U.S. Attorneys' offices, and which took many months to resolve. And certainly, in the only state where gambling is legal everywhere and casinos exercise great political power, the U.S. Attorney's office would have far more important issues to deal with than whether the residents of "Sin City" (or even the outlying areas) are having their "community standards" violated by adult videos.

"Who could doubt the wisdom of advice that Las Vegas is not a good venue?" assessed noted First Amendment attorney Paul Cambria. "Las Vegas would be the last place I would pick if I were doing the picking. Dominic Gentile represented the Perainos some years ago in the last big obscenity case in that town, and they were acquitted. I'm shocked that they would pick Las Vegas."

Ward, of course, didn't see it that way.

"For the FBI people to go to LV [Las Vegas] and sit and listen to the lame excuses of a defiant U.S. Attorney is only going to move this whole enterprise closer to catastrophe," Ward wrote.

"That's not just wrong," Bogden said of the "defiant" description, "it's flat-out wrong."

Ward saw the situation as one where local FBI officials were taking their cues from the USAs:

"The Bureau is positioning itself so that it can point the finger at DOJ and say, 'See, we investigated this case and DOJ couldn't find anyone to prosecute it.' ... We need to talk about some way to head this off. It is happening with regularity in the districts that are key to our strategy of hitting the producers on their own turf. Apparently neither Alice nor the DAG [Deputy Attorney General] has been able to overcome the objections of these U.S. Attorneys. Either we hit the big producers head on and on their own turf, or we give up on these districts and work the producers derivatively in other, more welcoming districts. In the latter case the impediment is that the FBI is still loath to work a case against a bricks and mortar outfit, which is where we would need to start (unless we begin with a contrived buy/bust using the Internet), even if the intention is to roll producers and distributors into the case. If we are going to give up on the key districts and go after a derivative strategy, the front office will need to become involved in the decision. The FBI is too locked into the key district approach to be dissuaded by me."

The producers' "own turf" would of course be Southern California, although there are a few well-known producers in Arizona and Nevada, and with Yang's "resignation" and Charlton's and Bogden's firings, it would appear that none of the relevant U.S. Attorneys were keen on cooperating with Ward. The question is, why?

That answer is known to everyone who deals in adult product in those locales, and likely to the (former) U.S. Attorneys there as well: The "community standards" in the tri-state area are so tolerant of adult material that it would be nearly impossible to find a jury that would convict any of the "big producers" on obscenity charges. That's why the FBI's preferred method has been to "work the producers derivatively in other, more welcoming districts" through Internet sting operations.

"It falls into what I said a long, long time ago," Cambria agreed, "and that is that the people in charge of these prosecutions for the Republican administration are out of touch with what the actual people with their feet on the street think about adult entertainment, and what's happening is, the local prosecutors, who know the pulse of the community, are trying to educate them and give them good advice, and it's obvious that it doesn't gel with their political agenda, so what do they do? They kill the messenger."

Incredibly, Ward's Aug. 29 email contains a handwritten note from Associate Attorney General Bill Mercer which appears to read, "DAG [Deputy Attorney General] wants to say, I've looked at the case, looked @ the ev [evidence] – doesn't understd [understand] (1) community standards." There's also an arrow from the "ev" pointing to the first line of Ward's email with the notation, "easier than a drug conspiracy." So apparently, Ward isn't the only DOJ higher-up who thinks that obscenity prosecutions should be a slam-dunk.

Ward's Aug. 29 email, toward the end, reiterates his position that one of the reasons for the lack of indictments is "that the FBI's squad is ineffective and its strategy is not working." The "strategy" referred to is likely the sting operations, and one of the reasons why that might not be working up to Ward's expectations is that many adult companies, mindful of past prosecutions and the "community standards" implicated by them, are more careful where they are willing to ship their product.

But Ward had a suggestion:

"Our whole approach to obscenity enforcement could be greatly improved, if the Task Force and the FBI squad were co-located. Some of the impediments that have hindered the effectiveness of the squad could be overcome, if we were in closer proximity... I think the success of the Task Force may hinge on turning it into a real task force by putting us together with the people we ought to be working with on a daily basis."

"Obscenity enforcement is likely to be limited in any event until the Bureau is willing to instruct field offices to cooperate with the USAOs in the initiation of cases," Ward continued. "Such FO [field office] cases should be coordinated by the WFO [Washington Field Office] squad (which I think would be a good use of its time). ... To get a case going in the vast majority of the districts it will take a USA or AUSA [Assistant U.S. Attorney] who is so highly motivated and so well situated that he can either persuade his SAC [Special (FBI) Agent in Charge] to initiate a case (highly unlikely), or he is willing to engage with local law enforcement to do so. There are few USAs or AUSAs who will make that effort. This can be changed, if the message is strong and urgent enough at the top. Also, I am working on a strategy that would at least provide USAs with information about possible targets in their districts in case they do have the necessary motivation to do something with it."

Ward's strategy is nothing new. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, at a 2002 seminar for U.S. attorneys, FBI agents and religious leaders, announced a planned rewrite of Justice Department guidelines so that all obscenity cases would be coordinated through DOJ Washington, but since his tenure brought none, perhaps the guidelines were ignored. But again, Ward complains about the lack of enthusiasm of USAs to bring obscenity cases, reinforcing the cluelessness of the "situation on the ground" in the districts.

However, by Nov. 22, Ward was able to get the attention of Gonzales' second-in-command, Kyle Sampson, a fellow Utahan, on the issue of the JM prosecution. Ward had previously copied Sampson on an email he sent to Sigal Mandelker, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal division, which noted that the Five Star case (which Ward refers to as the "JM Productions case") had been set for trial in July, 2007, and stated, "As you know, my position is that we will not be in the best position to prevail at trial without the active participation of an AUSA from that District, which has thus far been refused."

It's a tactic that Cambria well understands.

"It should be through the locals," Cambria explained. "It shouldn't be just Washington, because that gives us the opportunity to say, 'Why is somebody from Washington telling you about what's going on in your community?' I always include that in my closings. He [Ward] understands; he told me they have my summations and they use them in their training program."

"It is very exasperating to be in the position of not knowing what, if anything, has been done above me in the Department to secure the cooperation of the U.S. Attorney in this case, even after the passage of more than seven months since I began seeking help in gaining that cooperation," Ward's email continues. "I can only assume that something has been done by someone in the DAG's [Deputy Attorney General's] office, albeit without any apparent effect. I also assume that the AG has not yet personally weighed in. If that is the case, now is the time for him to do so."

"This case will become something of a benchmark, because it will be the first trial of a Task Force case," Ward's email concludes. "The outcome is bound to have an exaggerated effect on the level of participation and cooperation we can expect to receive from other U.S. Attorneys in future cases. For these reasons I request that the AG direct the U.S. Attorney in Arizona to immediately join with us in the prosecution of this case." [Emphasis added]

Two days later, Sampson assured Ward that "Charlton has been directed to provide an AUSA," which Kinsley states is one Paul Rood. Within a month after that date, however, Charlton had tendered his resignation as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, and about one week after that, the original judge in the Five Star case recused himself. Just how much of that was as a result of Charlton's apparent recognition that the Five Star case was unwinnable is unclear.

What is clear is that the upper echelons of the Justice Department consider the Five Star case to be crucial to their ongoing effort to put adult production companies out of business – an effort that seems doomed to failure in light of Richard Hertzberg's Motion to Dismiss. That's unlikely to sit well with the anti-adult forces allied in support of federal obscenity prosecutions.

"You get the sense of Brent Ward being alone in the wilderness and recognizing it," commented First Amendment attorney Jeffrey Douglas. "The US Attorneys aren't helping; the FBI isn't. Even if I were not some sort of hardcore extremist, I think a fair reading of these emails makes it clear that nobody gives a rat's ass about it, and that's inspiring. It's positively inspiring."

This kind of thing gives me faith in the fact that the do-gooders are so focused on their mission to abort the US of filth, they can taste it. Yet, like an ice cream cone, watch it slip out of their hands after they trip on the crick in the sidewalk & fall flat on their face.

Even more..........


Fired U.S. Attorney Bogden: Ward Sought Obscenity Cases At AEE
By: David Sullivan
Posted: 5:00 pm PST 3-29-2007


LAS VEGAS - In an interview with the Las Vegas Sun, former Nevada U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden discussed the circumstances of his dismissal by the Bush Administration. Bogden revealed to the Sun that the unidentified obscenity case pressed upon him by federal porn czar Brent Ward emerged from last year's AVN Adult Entertainment Expo.



According to Bogden, Ward and other obscenity task force staffers came to AEE in search of potential targets for prosecution.

"They go in there, and in their super-sleuthing work, they come up with the name of an individual who may be selling obscene videos over the Internet," Bogden told the Sun.

Ward's chosen target was not selling or producing child porn or bestiality, but the kind of adults-only material considered "fairly routine" by current standards. Despite the shaky grounds for the case, "Ward's team wanted to send a message and wanted Bogden to take it on," the article stated.

Bogden told Ward he could not pursue the matter given the weakness of the case and his office's lack of available resources, but agreed to meet in one year to re-evaluate the situation.

In recently-disclosed e-mails to the Justice Department, Ward complained that Bogden was "defiant" and making "excuses." Ward also singled out Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton for lack of cooperation in the Five Star/JM Productions obscenity case.

"It just enraged me," Bogden told the Sun. "You see those e-mails and the things they say about me and the other attorneys, people who are very respected. And they are just demeaning and belittling and unprofessional."

To read the full article, click here .

Pretty easy to spot the FAUX NEWS viewers...

If there was nothing wrong done than why is Monica Goodling, the Justice Dept's Liason with the White House pleading the FIFTH!?!

Quote:

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Nothing sucks worse than than being indicted for perjury when there was no crime committed.

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Yeah ...just ask Bill Clinton.

Critics Say U.S. Attorney Firings Were Linked to Anti-Porn Efforts





WASHINGTON [NC Register.com] — Is Attorney General Roberto Gonzales under fire for prosecuting pornography?

Some administration critics say Gonzales fired eight U.S. attorneys as part of a Justice Department crackdown on obscenity. The firings sparked a political debacle for the Bush administration that has Gonzales fighting to keep his job.

“In a move popular with anti-porn groups and the religious right, Gonzales had made a renewed war on porn one of the top priorities of the Department of Justice,” wrote Mark Follman, in a Salon.com article that blames the firing of U.S. attorneys on a new federal crusade against porn.

But lax obscenity enforcement, said a former porn prosecutor for the Reagan administration, has resulted in unbridled availability of porn — on cell phones, computers, cable TV and in hotel rooms everywhere — that’s fundamentally changing American culture.

“Our children and our college students are consuming a steady diet of obscene material,” says Patrick Truman, an assistant attorney general under Ronald Reagan who headed the Child Exploitation and Obscenity section of the Department of Justice.

“The mainstream porn industry has been left to do pretty much whatever it wants,” he said. “Porn is now so pervasive that our college students don’t even know how to date, because pornography has conditioned young men to believe that they’re entitled to sexual services from women without the need for relationship. They’re on such a steady diet of porn that they can’t distinguish between love and sexual desire.”

Truman told the Register he and a small group of other lawyers concerned with the lax enforcement of obscenity laws met recently with Michael Mason, executive assistant director of the FBI, to express their concerns that no war on porn has been waged.

“No, we haven’t turned this tide of pornography back at all,” said Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media. “Very little has been done since the Reagan administration, and the other side is winning big.”

Jan LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America, wrote Feb. 26 in the organization’s online publication: “Anybody who keeps track of obscenity prosecutions knows the stats show that it’s not the ‘priority’ we’ve been told it is.”

Gonzales, aware of growing criticism that the administration has allowed porn to run amok, last year established the Justice Department’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force and appointed veteran prosecutor Brent Ward to lead it. Justice Department officials declined to comment for this article.

“I am maintaining hope that with Brent Ward at the helm of this task force, things might improve,” said Peters. “Do I have delusions that we’ll put the major pornographers out of business by 2009? No. But I do think with the appointment of Brent Ward the Bush administration may be able to show the next administration that enforcing our obscenity laws is not impossible.”

Ward, a former U.S. attorney for Utah appointed by Reagan, began his work on the new task force by successfully prosecuting makers of “Girls Gone Wild” videos for failing to document the ages of young women featured in the shows.

Ward’s appointment has displeased defenders of porn as much as it has pleased Peters and other porn adversaries. It was Ward, in fact, whose actions led some in the mainstream press and thousands of bloggers to opine that the firing of U.S. attorneys was evidence of a renewed commitment to taking down the porn industry.

The Nation magazine published an article March 20 called “The Porn Plot Against Prosecutors.” It blamed Ward for much of the Reagan administration’s success in prosecuting pornographers, saying he was one of former Attorney General Edwin Meese’s “most fervent and earnest witnesses” in carrying out Reagan’s war against porn.

The Nation and other publications say a Sept. 20 e-mail by Ward indicates that the U.S. attorney firings are part of a renewed war against porn. The e-mail, sent to Kyle Sampson, Gonzalez’s chief of staff, reads:

“We have two U.S. attorneys who are unwilling to take good cases we have presented to them. They are Paul Charlton in Phoenix and Dan Bogden in Las Vegas. In light of the AG’s comments … to ‘kick butt and take names,’ what do you suggest I do?”

Despite the e-mail, Truman said the U.S. attorney firings had nothing to do with a crackdown on porn.

“That assertion is laughable to anyone who knows the inner workings of the Justice Department,” Truman said.

Shortly after his appointment as attorney general, Gonzalez announced that prosecution of pornography portraying consensual sex among adults would be “one of the top priorities” of the Justice Department. He signed off on an FBI memo that said prosecutors would focus mainly on pornography depicting “bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior.”

“That’s part of the problem,” Truman said. “The few cases that have been prosecuted involve extreme pornography, depicting violence, defecation or animals. Most people have no interest in this stuff, and it’s not the business the mainstream porn industry is in. By only pursuing extreme obscenity, the mainstream porn industry is given a green light. There’s this perception that anything other than extreme pornography is legal, and it’s not. The fact that it’s not being prosecuted does not make it legal.”

Truman said for the Department of Justice to have a substantial effect, it would need to go after cable TV and satellite TV giants, and most mainstream hotel chains. He said all have realized huge profits in porn, because a porn feature can be produced for $20,000 or less, yet it gets sold to the public for the same price as mainstream Hollywood films that cost tens of millions of dollars to produce.

“Almost all of the major hotel chains are offering hard-core pornography on the televisions in the rooms, and these cost a consumer the same as any movie,” Truman said. “A few years ago, it was soft-core pornography. Now, it’s full-fledged hard-core porn that violates the standards of almost every community in the United States. This is what happens when you don’t enforce the obscenity laws.”

Peters, of Morality in Media, said the Justice Department has taken on only about 15 obscenity cases under the Bush administration, and none of them has targeted the mainstream porn industry. Truman said the porn industry is “almost monolithic,” with most porn emanating from only about 50 major companies that could all be taken down.

The problem, said Truman, lies in a misperception among today’s federal prosecutors that winning porn cases is next to impossible, with the ACLU and other groups claiming that pornography is protected speech under the First Amendment. He said prosecutors believe that if millions of adults are consuming porn, it’s difficult to prove that the material violates community standards — which the Supreme Court has said it must do to violate obscenity laws.

“But it’s not difficult,” Truman said, speaking about the 20 cases he was involved in. “In four years in the Reagan administration, I never lost a single jury trial in which we were out to prove that a purveyor of porn violated the community standard. You show the jury the material in question and ask ‘does this meet the community standard?’ They say No every time, even if they themselves look at porn.

“They say No because they wouldn’t be seen looking at it on a bus, or in some other public venue. They wouldn’t show it to their houseguests. Most porn violates community standards, that makes it illegal, and it’s easy to prove.”

“Porn is now so pervasive that our college students don’t even know how to date, because pornography has conditioned young men to believe that they’re entitled to sexual services from women without the need for relationship. They’re on such a steady diet of porn that they can’t distinguish between love and sexual desire.”


Where's the fucking data to support such shit? Where's the data asshole?