New Bern, North Carolina- Adult store owner Greg Sakas has a date in court this week stemming from a police raid of his store in January.
Meanwhile, the Christian Coalition which had picketed his store in past weeks then stopped, resumed this past Sunday. Sakas has a mild hunch that it’s due to the court date which is Thursday. Sakas is also convinced that the city’s police chief, Frank Polumbo is also in the Coalition’s back pocket.
“They had three police cars across the street,” says Sakas. “But I did get them to move out the people from our parking lot. Sunday they came to picket but they didn’t get the publicity thery wanted [the local media has been virtually ignoring the case].
“I just talked to one of the attorneys and he feels they did this on purpose,” Sakas continues. “They had been issued the paperwork from the police chief. They had to get a permit. The police chief himself signed off on that paperwork.
“There’s no doubt that the police chief is not going to back down,” Sakas continues. Meanwhile, Sakas’ inventory, store records and computers are still with the police and haven’t been returned to him.
“I talked to the policeman who was in charge of watching the picketers and he said he was there to keep order,” says Sakas. “I said what do you think- I’m going to come out with two six guns blazing or something? He didn’t answer me. Then I said if they’e on my property am I correct or not that that is illegal? So they moved them off our property and across the street. I thanked the policeman and told him I worry more about them than I do us. I said we’re not going to cause a problem and he said he was instructed to be here.
“I asked him, does your police chief think there’s going to be problems and there has to be three police cars? I’d hate to think if there was a daggone murder here, and he did not answer me. So I said, I’ll tell you what. Tell your police chief Polumbo and the assistant that as far as I’m concerned it’s not over. Then I told him, by the way, you get a 20% discount on your off duty hours to come to the store. And tell the police chief and the assistant they get the same discount.”
Sakas also told all of the picketers they’d get a 20% discount as well.
“The leader of them said we don’t need a 20% discount for your store,” recounts Sakas. “We have a 100% discount to get into heaven by not coming into your store. I said God bless you sir and good luck.”
Sakas later found out that Polumbo was behind everything.
“He’s saying, basically, as far as he’s concerned, he doesn’t believe that we’e in the right<‘ Sakas continues. “He doesn’t care what the city has to say. So it wouldn’t surprise us, again, to be raided. He doesn’t give a shit what anybody’s saying. He’s going to do what he thinks is right. We don’t think he’s stupid right now- four days before we go to court- to try to raid the store again. But we do not have any agreements in place at this point.”
According to Sakas, one of his store managers is down with an aneurysm which may or may not delay the court proceedings.
“He has to have immediate surgery so we don’t know what we need to do,” states Sakas. “We’ve got to talk all of that over.”
According to what Sakas also hears, the woman store manager, who was arrested in the police raid last January, might testify against him.
“She’s saying I was aware of the state ordinance and I didn’t tell her that,” states Sakas. “And she’s a daughter of a good Christian minister. That’s going to look real good in court for them. I never talked to her about any of this. She’s going to be lying about a lot of things.”
I ask Sakas what the hell is a minister’s daughter doing working in a porn store.
“I can use the fact that there’s a $2,000 credit card fraud while she was the manager,” Sakas replies. “The petty cash is missing, and there’s the fact that she owes us $2000. And on top of everything else, the Gold’s Gym in New Bern was paid with our company credit card. And she had a membership there. But we can’t use any of that in court against her. So you tell me.”