With an obscenity case scheduled to go to trial July 7th, the attorneys for John Stagliano are accusing the US government of exercising retaliatory and vindictive measures and acting improperly.
In a story reported on by www.xbiz.com, attorney Allan Gelbard said that the Justice Department’s criminal indictment was based in connection with an $11.2 million award Stagliano won back in August, 2007 against Kaytel Video Distribution in a copyright infringement claim.
[If that’s the case, why didn’t the government also go after Jules Jordan Video which was awarded $5M in the same case?]
The Kaytel judgment involved some 64,500 counterfeit adult videos involving about 55 Evil Angel videos.
Stagliano’s attorneys say that a review of discovery materials provided by the government showed that he wasn’t even on the government’s radar until he filed the Kaytel suit and that Stagliano is being penalized for defending his intellectual property rights.
“This case truly sets up a fear for defendants and innumerable others that exercising their rights to seek copyright protection by registering their works with the Copyright Office could very well put them in defendant’s position — defending against a criminal indictment,” attorneys said in a motion made on Monday.
If not having the case thrown out, Stagliano’s attorneys say they want an
an evidentiary hearing to determine the true basis of the prosecutors’ decision to select Stagliano for prosecution and whether there was selective prosecution involved in the decision.
In another motion, Stagliano attorneys have asked Leon to throw out the seventh count of the indictment, which alleges the distribution of obscene materials in a manner, which “may be available to minors.”
Stagliano and his companies — Evil Angel Productions Inc. and John Stagliano Inc. —were indicted on seven counts for illegal possession, distribution and sale of the obscene materials.
FBI agents used the defendants’ website to order two films, “Milk Nymphos” and “Storm Squirters 2 ‘Target Practice.'” An FBI agent in Washington also downloaded a free trailer called “Fetish Fanatic Chapter 5.”