LAKE WALES, Fla. — According to a story on www.xbiz.com The Florida circuit court has yet to calendar a hearing based on Kimberly Kupps’ motion to determine the geographic scope of “community” as applied to her obscenity charges.
Her attorney, Lawrence Walters said the case was proceeding very slowly.
“Some status conferences and discovery documents received, but no hearing on the motion yet.”
For a defense, Walters is hoping to build on the foundation laid in the U.S. vs. Kilbride case from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which requires the application of national community standards in Internet obscenity cases.
Kupps, aka Theresa Taylor, and her husband Warren Taylor were incarcerated in early June after one of Sheriff Grady Judd’s deputies spent three months investigating porn videos the couple made at home and sold online.
Simply put, someone, probably in the neighborhood, snitched on Kupps and her husband by telling the cops she was running a production and distribution business out of her home at 926 S. Lakeshore Blvd.
Now they’re acting all innocent and horrified-like.
“It’s kind of surprising because you never think of anything like that happening in your neighborhood,” offered Paul Parker.
“I’ll probably look at all the houses here a little different because I never anticipated this happening,” added Ray Friedrich.
A police investigator subsequently paid the initial $19.95 membership fee to her website, kimberlykupps.com, where he found videos of Theresa Taylor having sex with men and women, as well as offering some of the clothes she wore in the videos for sale.
The investigator downloaded six videos and allowed County Judge Reinaldo Ojeda to review them. On April 7, Ojeda ruled the videos were obscene material under state law. During questioning, Warren Taylor, 58, said he filmed the videos downloaded by the investigator and uploaded them for sale on the website clips4sale.com. The husband said the couple made an average of $700 monthly for the past four months.
Warren Taylor was booked on six counts each of wholesale promotion of obscene material and distribution of obscene material, a misdemeanor. Theresa Taylor was booked on six counts each of selling obscene material and distributing obscene material, both misdemeanors.
She was also charged with the felony wholesale promotion of obscene material. Depending on the nature of that material, this could be the beginning of a long, hard road for the Taylors.
With law enforcement generally following monkey see, monkey do investigative procedures, we can no doubt expect to see a rash of busts like these throughout the country in sensitive community standards areas.
Most of them will probably involve amateur porn websites such as the one the Taylors were operating. With ratting out becoming the new computer past time as we’ve seen in the Anthony Weiner case, this becomes an opportunity too good to pass up. And Google makes the job a whole lot easier for the Sheriff Grady Judds around the country.
Says Sheriff Grady who always manages to get in the last word: “We want a wholesome community.We don’t want smut peddlers and they if they try to peddle smut from Polk County or into Polk County, we’ll be on them like a cheap suit.”
So if you’re thinking of moving your adult company out of state because Los Angeles doesn’t like you any more, guess what? Polk County likes you even less.