STAUNTON, Virginia —A trial date has been set in the case of a store owner and store employee indicted on multiple obscenity counts.
Rick Krial, owner of After Hours Video, and his company, LSP of Virginia, were indicted on 16 felony and eight misdemeanor counts of obscenity on Nov. 1. In October, 12 undercover agents purchased DVDs at Krial’s store.
On Jan. 22, a grand jury indicted Krial’s employee, Tinsley W. Embrey, on six felony and four misdemeanor counts of obscenity.
Krial, Embrey and LSP of Virginia will face two misdemeanor counts each at a trial beginning June 17.
The trial date was set at a motion hearing this morning. Staunton Circuit Court Judge Thomas H. Wood presided over the hearing.
An additional motion hearing will be conducted May 27.
Though the defense requested that all of the obscenity counts be tried in one case, Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Robertson said this would require the jurors to watch 24 hours of pornography.
Robertson said watching that much pornography might upset and anger a jury. He also said he is concerned that the jury would become desensitized. “If you watch 24 hours of straight porn it loses its impact,” he said after the hearing.
Undercover agents purchased DVDs on four separate occasions, Robertson said.
Robertson suggested that there either be four separate trials or that jurors be asked to view the first two movies purchased and then base their remaining judgments of all 12 movies on the first two.
Krial’s defense attorney, Paul Cambria Jr., said that multiple trials would place undue financial burden on his client and would give the prosecution “several bites at the apple.”
“They decided how many movies they wanted to charge,” he said about the prosecution. “We didn’t decide that.”
Cambria also said he was opposed to having the jury base their decisions on movies that they haven’t seen. Cambria said that when he makes arguments based on a summation of all of the movies, his arguments might not make sense to the jury unless they’ve seen them all.
In the end, Robertson suggested that two movies be tried in a misdemeanor trial, dismissing two other counts of obscenity. Two more movies would then be tried in a subsequent felony trial, which would mean dismissing one count of obscenity, he said. Robertson said he will decide at a later time whether to have additional trials for the third and fourth indictments.
“What he’s proposing makes all the good sense to me,” Wood said, after saying that he didn’t think he could approve the defense’s motion to do everything in one trial.
While the first two misdemeanor counts will be tried June 17, Robertson said he is undecided as to whether he would move forward with the felony trial should the jury decide that the movies do not contain obscenity.