http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008808120317Former pornography producer Clinton "Ray Guhn" McCowen and two of his former employees watched as a prosecutor played a video showcasing their work Monday morning for a judge in Santa Rosa County.
Although the attorney turned the monitors so that only the judge and three defendants could see, four people — offended by what they heard — stood up and left when the sounds of the sex video began to play.
Afterward, McCowen, the creator of a local adult Web site, was sentenced to 48 months in state prison. The 47-year-old Navarre resident pleaded guilty in June to unlawful financial transactions for laundering money from his corporation based in Reno, Nev., through another account and eventually to his personal account in Fort Walton Beach.
McCowen's attorney argued that his client's money transfers — using money produced by the site's subscription fees — were easy to track and that he didn't believe McCowen was trying to hide anything.
Circuit Judge Ron Swanson also sentenced two of McCowen's former employees who previously pleaded guilty to single counts of racketeering. Andrew Craft, 40, was given 34½ months in prison, while Kevin Patrick Stevens, 38, received 40 months.
"Ray Guhn Productions" featured a Web site with between 4,000 and 8,000 subscribers who could view films featuring group sex and other genre-specific sex acts for $30 a month.
The company made more than $10 million in profits in its five years of operation, prosecutor Russ Edgar said.
'Intimidation'
"In this case we have local people being recruited and local people being intimidated into participating in this Web site," Edgar said. "The people participating in this were drug addicts and desperate people."
Los Angeles attorney Jerry Mooney, who represents many people in the adult entertainment industry, said the case came down to more than the nature of the material his client and the co-defendants produced.
Mooney said people in the adult entertainment business should take extra caution to separate themselves from their on-screen performers.
Sex and drugs
Edgar said McCowen and company paid on-camera performers — many of whom were prostitutes and local strippers — to attend sex parties after shoots where pain pills and cocaine were dished out.
"That sort of thing is never a good idea," Mooney said. "If you were a lumber company, would it be all right to have private parties with your cashiers? That was problematic in this case."
McCowen produced prescriptions that showed the painkillers belonged to his wife, but those prescriptions did not completely account for all of the Lortab pills investigators found in his home. In a deposition, one man told authorities that he sold McCowen some of the pills.
On location
The sex films were produced at homes throughout Pensacola and Pace; at least five hotels in Pensacola; on the public portions of Pensacola Beach; the Blackwater River; in a moving vehicle along Interstate 10 and Interstate 110; and in wooded areas.
Stevens, a producer and Web technician, said he left the company a year before the investigation began. Craft recruited models, scouted locations for shoots and paid the models.
It's estimated that about 100 local men and women participated in the production of the sexual material featured on the site.
Craft's fiancee cried quietly in the back of the courtroom and daubed her eyes with a tissue as deputies led him from the courtroom. She did not wish to comment.
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