Florida- Eleven months behind bars didn’t take the entrepreneur out of “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis, who said he plans to continue with his bust-baring empire.
“This whole situation was a total farce — I didn’t do anything and the brand will survive and be bigger then ever,” Francis, 33, told FOXNews.com Thursday in his first official post-jail appearance at a Beverly Hills press conference.
“I am a very ADD, hyper-focused person and when I was locked in that cage, I was able to analyze everything and gather a great deal of new ideas,” he said, announcing plans to release a magazine with a bonus full-length DVD on April 15 and a tequila in June.
The sex video mogul, estimated to earn over $29 million annually for his business, also said he received a great deal of inmate attention in the slammer.
“I was treated like a rock star, a total hero,” said. “But never in my life will I go anywhere near Panama City. The judge imprisoned me illegally — this whole situation is absurd.”
Francis was released from jail on Wednesday after pleading no contest to one count of felony child abuse and two misdemeanor prostitution charges in Bay County, Fla.
On behalf of his company Mantra Films, Francis also pleaded no contest to two additional child abuse counts. As the allegations against him were classified as “abuse,” Francis will not have to register as a child sex offender.
“I was held in incarceration illegally and accepted a plea deal just to get out of jail,” Francis said. “I am innocent; I have committed no crime whatsoever. The two 17-year-old girls that sued me falsified forms and their IDs. The material shot was never used or passed on.”
Francis believes that officials in Panama City have held a “vendetta” against him since 2003 and considered him a “scum-sucking low-life that wasn’t welcome in their city.” He also dismissed reports that he bribed a public servant and explained his arrest for three counts of a controlled substance as “prescription medication” that he took to the correctional facility.