Ed Wedelstedt resurfaces: www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=45543
March 15, 2005- from www.thedenverchannel.com - DENVER -- A Colorado businessman, dubbed by federal investigators as the country's No. 1 distributor of pornography, will soon be heading to Texas to face 23 federal charges of obscenity, racketeering and tax charges.
Eddie Wedelstedt, of Littleton, owns Goalie Entertainment Holdings Inc., which is headquartered off Colorado Boulevard.
The corporation runs a porn business out of stores like Romantix, located on Colfax and Washington, along with 60 other shops in 18 states across the country.
Members of a grand jury watched six videotapes and DVDs sold at Wedelstedt's store and the jury found them to contain obscene material, therefore making them illegal.
According to the indictment, handed down in Dallas, "Wedelstedt allegedly conducted a criminal enterprise with the principal aims of distributing obscenity and mailing fraudulent sales tax returns."
"The government is basically seeking to forfeit these stores or businesses that were part of the criminal activity or criminal enterprise that he ran," said IRS investigator John Harrison.
The IRS is also going after Wedelstedt, 62, stating that he and his company failed to report millions of dollars in revenue.
"He was one of the largest distributors of pornographic videos in the country that we are aware of and the dollar losses to the government were very significant," said Harrison.
The indictment alleges that Goalie Entertainment managed bookstores that sold pornographic magazines, videos and products in the front and showed sexually explicit movies in back rooms to customers who purchased tokens.
Prosecutors in the case said some proceeds from the back-room viewing operations were skimmed.
Wedelstedt's attorney told 7NEWS that the trial will prove otherwise -- that Wedelstedt overpaid his taxes.
Although some may be offended by pornography, it's not illegal unless it's deemed obscene.
Two Arlington, Texas, residents, Leroy Moore Sr., 64, and Beverly Kay Van Dusen, 46, were also accused of conspiring to sell porn at Dallas-area stores and paying a percentage of revenues back to Wedelstedt's company.
Goalie Entertainment also was named in the indictment, along with Vivian Lee Schoug of Littleton; Arthur Morris Boten of Des Moines; James Randal Martinson of Memphis, Tenn.; and Jeffrey Mark Parrish of Denver.
Goalie Entertainment disputes the allegations against it and said it looks forward to proving the company's innocence.
While this case involves stores all across the country, investigators in Dallas were the first to file this case, therefore Wedelstedt will report to Dallas when the trial plays out.
March 3, 2006: DALLAS -- A Colorado porn magnate convicted of federal obscenity and tax fraud charges was sentenced Thursday to 13 months in prison and ordered to close his adult stores in Texas, authorities said.
Edward J. Wedelstedt, of Littleton, Colo., pleaded guilty in November to evading taxes and illegally distributing a pornographic video deemed obscene by a grand jury.
Wedelstedt's company, Goalie Entertainment Holdings Inc., has operated Texas stores in Abilene, Amarillo, Merkel, Terrell, Hillsboro, Wichita Falls, Lubbock and Dallas. Goalie Entertainment is headquartered in Colorado and operated out of an industrial building near Interstate 70 in Denver.
The corporation runs a porn business out of stores like Romantix, located at Colfax and Washington in Denver, along with 60 other shops in 18 states across the country.
Federal authorities alleged that customers bought pornographic magazines, videos and other materials and paid to watch sexually explicit movies in the back of his stores.
Wedelstedt admitted that he kept two sets of accounting books and withheld large sums of cash from the IRS, authorities said.
Arthur Boten, a regional manager for Wedelstedt in Des Moines, Iowa, was sentenced Thursday to two years probation on tax charges.
Leroy Moore of Arlington, Wedelstedt's former business partner, is scheduled to be sentenced March 30. He has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute obscenity.
Wedelstedt is best known in Denver for his non-profit foundation, Eddie's Kids, which provides professional sports tickets to poor children.
