Cleveland- A federal grand jury in Salt Lake City Thursday returned charges against Cleveland residents Sami R. Harb and Michael Harb, doing business as Movies by Mail. The indictment included three counts of engaging in a business of selling or transferring obscene DVDs, and three counts of using the mails to deliver obscene DVDs.
I spoke to Sami Harb this week as he was awaiting those charges. www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=23325. Besides railing against the Free Speech Coalition for its apparent wishy-washy stand on his case, this is what Harb had further to say:
Harb says he’s been trying to get some of the “big boys” in the industry to help with his case.
“And the big boys are hiding,” says Harb. “You can’t catch them. And those are the guys we spend the most money with. It’s pretty sad. But the reality is we have to try and raise as much funds as we can.
“What these clowns had been doing in our case- they had been investigating nine or ten mounths,” says Harb. “Obviously they couldn’t find anything or they would have come and got us sooner.
“The Feds actually placed an original order with us sooner- in August- and it linked to Washington D.C. That order went to the new Child Obscenity Task Force. They’re the ones who originally ordered from us and they actually ordered six different movies from six different studios. I guess out of those six they picked these two- Max Hardcore, and Extreme Associates- as the ones they felt were the most extreme.
“Two Max movies and one Extreme movie are involved in my case,” says Harb. “The Extreme titles was Cocktails 5. And the Max movies were Pure Max #12 and #18. Basically the feds ordered these movies, sat around in their offices, watched them and found which ones were the most obscene. They picked those three titles then called their Utah field office eight months later. From August to March, then they had an FBI field agent in Utah order those specific titles after they had agreed among themselves that those were the ones they wanted to go after. It’s really nice of them.”
“Our arraignment is July 12th,” Harb continues. “We’re waiting for the indictment. Our attorneys feel that the government’s going to be jacking us around on expenses. He said they’re really going to fuck with us when it comes to expenses. They’re going to try and milk us as much money as they can by making us keep going back to Utah.
“Every time four of us have to go there and come back it’s five grand. They’re going to make me go back and forth, five or ten times. But right now we’re waiting for the indictment.”
“If we can amicably end this as soon as possible without too much pain, fine; if not we have every intention of going all the way.” According to Harb, the maximum penalty he can face is five years.
“But the rules of sentencing because it’s an eighth degree felony- because of my clean record and my partner’s clean record and having no priors whatsoever and impeccable reputations, we’re talking a six month suspended sentence. So I’m going to spend at least a quarter of a million dollars to hear someone tell me three months from now, suspended sentence. That’s a damn shame. I don’t know what this country is coming to but it’s not right.
“The most disturbing thing that came out of this to me- besides the fact of what a worthless organization the Free Speech Coalition is- was one of the lead investigators from the Washington task force was here on that raid. I spoke to him with the lead investigator from the Utah FBI and we had a lengthy conversation. These guys disclosed to me, telling me we have a set of dos and don’ts that we like and don’t like regards to obscenity. I go, wait a minute. You actually have a list that tells me- a business man, a retailer- what it is you consider obscene and what would keep me under the radar with you guys?
“But he would not make that list available to me,” Harb goes on to say. “He look at me and smiled. He goes, yah. He said I’ll give you one better. We have two lists- from the DOJ and the FBI. I said how is it that I’m supposed to run my business legitimately and legally when you won’t even tell me what it is?”
“So why don’t these guys just re-write the definition of obscenity and put in these dos and dont’s and be over with this nonsense?” I ask Harb. “Instead of going through this 3 point Miller test bullshit?”
“You tell me,” answers Harb. “And I told them you want me to solve your problem for you? Hire me as a consultant for 30 days and I’ll solve all your problems. The guy looks at me and goes how so? I said, listen. If you have a studio like Max Hardcore, and Extreme Associates, you want to know how to put them out of business and have them stop producing this type of material? He goes, ‘How?’
“I said, you write a letter telling me, hey, we don’t like this shit and if we catch you with it, we might come after you. I said do you know how fast that shit would be out of my warehouse? And he just looked at me and said do you think your industry would embrace something like that? I said my industry doesn’t have to. The retailers are the ones that have to embrace it. And, yes, they would. Why? Because we don’t no par of you idiots. I don’t need any one studio to sell product. I said do you think it makes a difference to me if I have 650 studios or 600 or 500? He looks at me and looks at his buddy and smiles. He goes, it’s that easy, huh? I go yeah. It’s that easy.”
Harb reps 600 studios.
“There’s 7,000 new releases that come out every year,” he states. “Am I expected to know what’s in all 7,000 movies? How the hell can I do that? It’s impossible. The government won’t regulate our industry yet they’re holding us accountable for what somebody else creates. I’m just the peddler. And you’re holding me responsible fo what someone else made? You’re coming after me for what someone else gave me? How the hell does that make any sense? There’s really no rhyme or reason to this. And the Fedsdo this because they want political punching bags, whenever they need headlines and they come after one of us. And that’s basically what it comes down to. It’s a sad reality in this country.”
“You would think that with all these grown adults and all the brain power between all these people they can’t fix this problem?” asks Harb. “Come on. It comes down to this. They don’t want to fix it. Because if they fix it, they don’t have anyone to pick on any more. If they come to us with the dos and the don’ts, they’re actually legitimizing pornography. And they will never come out and do that.”
Harb’s been in business nearly nine years and this isn’t his first brush with the law.
“I had a city problem four years ago,” he explains. “I had the city come in, raid me and took all my product and left. They took all my inventory, computers and every thing. We ended up fighting that case. They dropped criminal charges against us, cleared our records then we sued them in federal court and won for illegal search and seizure and violation of our First amendment rights. Maybe that pissed them off and they targeted us. I don’t know.”
Right now Harb says he’s got until July 10th to come up with 60k towards his case.
“And you know the people that are turning me down are the big studios,” he reveals. “And that’s a fucking shame. These guys are all bastards. We’re peddling their shit and putting money in their product. We are the retailers who are making this industry. We are the ones that are driving this industry. We are the ones making them rich and then they turn their backs on us. They’re dirty bastards- that’s the truth.”
“I had one of the biggest studios [Evil Angel] tell us we have our own problems, sorry. I shit you not. They went as far as saying maybe down the road. We have our own legal issues right now and maybe in a few weeks the climate will change. But as of right now there’s nothing we can do for you. I was, like, wow. Tell you the truth I’ve got no love for them any more. I was extremely disappointed and there’s no way a multi-million dollar company like this can not turn to me and say, ‘Here’s a couple thousand dollars.’
“There’s no way in hell I’m gonna believe that they can’t do that,” says Harb. “They are one of the top three biggest companies in the country. How the hell can you sit there and justify that you can’t help me out for a few grand? I was extremely shocked. I was talking to Chris over there and he basically told me we have our own million dollar lawsuits going on right now. This is the situation right now and maybe after July…we’ll be able to help you with something.”
“I have studios that are literally going broke that are sending me a couple hundred pieces of product to sell because because they just wanted to help,” says Harb. “And then you have this gigantic monster that turned its back on us. Then I had the craziest thing happen to me. I had a guy who called me. He met me at a show four years ago- I had never done business with him. But this guy should be applauded. He was one of the first to call me- out of the blue.
His name is Russ, and he’s with RSK Distributors in Maryland. He called me saying I hope you remember me. He said I read the article and I’m sorry for what happened. I want to do my part- I know we don’t do business together but I feel like I’m obligated. I’d like to send you a couple of boxes of free goods. I hope it helps.”
“To me that was like worth a million dollars,” says Harb. “I was blown away. I couldn’t believe it. And then the guy I’m spending 200 grand a year with, I can’t get nothing out of. I have studios that have 30, 40, 50 titles that I do business with, that said hey, you owe us $900 on the books, we’ll wipe it of for you. We hope it helps. Or we’e going to send you 100 new releases- sell them and make some money. Those type of people should be applauded.
“Then you got these people that have more money than God- Stagliano doesn’t have any money? Hirsch doesn’t have money? Orenstein doesn’t have money? Come on.
“Last year I did almost a quarter of a million with Vivid in purchases,” Harb continues, “And this asshole won’t return my phone calls. I called him four times and got no return call. He won’t call me back. With Wicked I did over $100,000 last year and I’m still waiting for the owner to come back from vacation. Can’t get an answer. We do a lot of business. We do three million in sales. We’re buying this shit from somebody.”
P.S. here’s info, if companies wish to make a donation:
Make the check payable to:
Richard Lillie PHD Lawyer
75 Public Square Suite 1313
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
Mark it ATTEN: MBM DEFENSE FUND OR MOVIESBYMAIL DEFENSE FUND
Also, you can make a donation with paypal to [email protected], also marked defense fund
Thank You
Sami R Harb
MBM Entertainment Inc
WWW.Moviesbymail.com