Toronto- A year ago on this date, Scott Austin — aka porn star Kid Vegas — was languishing in a jail cell in upper New York State, having been escorted across the border following guest appearances at various Toronto-area detention centres.

After months of playing Canada’s immigration and refugee system like a cheap trick in one of his X-rated flicks, he was finally on a one-way ticket back to the small Nevada town of Beatty — (Pop. 1,154) — where he was wanted by the Nye County Sheriff’s office for skipping bail, and skedaddling to Canada to avoid prosecution on six sex-related offences.

But he had seen a lot of jails since he was scooped up at Pearson International in July 2005, and taken into custody the moment customs officials ran his passport through the computer and came up with a red flag.

When his jail tour began — the Maplehurst Detention Centre, the Lindsay superjail and finally to the Niagara Falls, Ont., facility — Austin had tried to claim refugee status in Canada, arguing that he would be subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment” if the sheriff’s office back in Beatty got him back in the prisoner’s dock.

As he told then-Las Vegas Sun reporter Molly Ball in a telephone interview the day after making a collect call to me to play a similar violin, “Those rednecks are trying to hang me because they don’t like what I do for a living.”

His refugee claim, however, was eventually turned down by Canadian authorities as not coming close to meeting Geneva Convention requirements.

What he did manage to do, however, was burn a lot of Canadian taxpayers’ money by using our easily-abused judicial system to peddle a lame argument.

But, eight days from now, his rope will reach its end.

According to a clerk at the 5th District Judicial Court in the county seat of Tonopah, Nev., the now 33-year-old Austin — star of such X-rated classics as Kid Vegas: Whoremaster, and Kid Vegas: Trenchcoat Pornographer — will appear before Judge John P. Davis on Dec. 4., and will apparently change his pleas to guilty.

Sentencing, said the clerk, will be immediate.

According to Austin’s lawyer, Chet Katchinski, a deal has been struck with the district attorney which will see Austin plead guilty to two misdemeanours, one gross misdemeanour, and one count of failure to appear — all which will see him sentenced to the five months he already served in custody when he was first hauled back to Nye County.

“If the judge buys in, that is,” said Katchinski.

Liz Gini is a certified legal assistant at a Las Vegas law office, and author of two books.

And this is what she had to say to Scott Austin via a column in the Las Vegas Tribune after news of his exploits and eventual extradition were outlined here.

“Be afraid, Austin,” she wrote. “Be very afraid.”

“Nye County — the naughtiest county in the naughtiest states — is nothing if not a weird dichotomy of sexual mores,” she explains. “On one hand, you have a county of God-fearing, church-going born-agains, Mormons, Baptists, and a handful of Catholics … folks sometimes referred to as rednecks. On the other hand, you have a county peppered with brothels.

“Yes, chickadees, prostitution flourishes in Nye County where it is perfectly legal. It is the place where soiled doves wait in line for their weekly check-ups beside mommies herding their kids in to the county for routine vaccinations,” she says. “Until recently, all this took place in the same building which housed the court and DA’s office.

“You would think that the folks of Nye County would be the last people in America who would want to throw the book at Scott Austin,” she opines.

“Instead, Nye County juries are famous for convicting guys of crimes when they view their behaviour as the slightest bit deviant. And Judge John P. Davis hands out the stiffest sentences for sex crimes in the state.

“Would a thirtyish tattooed punk with an attitude, who seduced a hometown girl from Beatty, face prison time in front of a Nye County jury?” she asks. “Duh?”

As it was played out at his preliminary hearing, Scott Austin — aka Kid Vegas — had gone to Beatty during the town’s high school homecoming week. It was home of his then-girlfriend, a 19-year-old who also happened to have starred with him in one of his X-rated features.

At the ensuing party, a 16-year-old girl claimed Austin followed her into the bathroom, locked the door, and then began “fondling” her against her will.

But that wasn’t all. Even Austin’s porn-star girlfriend claimed he wouldn’t take no for an answer when she spurned his sexual advances, so she charged him as well.

In a collect phone call from the Niagara Detention Centre back in October, a month before he was escorted to the American side of the border, Austin claimed he was facing enough felony charges back in Beatty that he would be serving “multiple life sentences” if convicted.

“It’s all corrupt down there,” he said. “I’m willing to stay here as long as it takes to avoid going back to Nevada.”

Time, of course, will tell — eight days time, to be exact.

For that is when Scott Austin will appear before Nevada Judge John P. Davis to see if his pre-arranged plea bargain will hold up, with Davis being the judge that Liz Gini says hands out the “stiffest sentences for sex crimes” in the “naughtiest county in the naughtiest state.”