Tampa, Florida- Max Hardcore calls me from Tampa, Florida. His obscenity trial begins Tuesday and Max is up on ten counts.
“It’s going to be a tough fight but we’re hoping to prevail, but you never know when you’re in a situation like this” he says. “We’ve got a lot of things going for us.” Max has a team of five attorneys including James Benjamin and his partner from the Ft. Lauderdale- Palm Beach area as well as Jeffrey Douglas, Jennifer Kinsley and H. Louis Sirkin.
“We’re going in with a lot of ammunition,” says Max.
According to Max, they pick the jury in the morning.
“And there’s no telling how long that will take,” he says. “it’s selection by subtraction.”
Early indications are that the trial will go until the end of next week.
“I thought it would have taken more time, but they’re pretty sure they can wrap it up by then,” Max also says.
The Federal judge is Susan Buckalew from the Central District of Florida.
“She’s known to be fair, but she also didn’t allow some of our arguments,” says Max.
“We argued that the community standards of the Tampa area do not apply to the World Wide Web. She felt otherwise, and we’re all surprised by that. But they have the right to do that. Nothing seems to be as clear cut as one might expect. But the bottom line is I didn’t ship the videos and didn’t make them available to be shipped as they’re charging me. And the company that did ship them isn’t controlled by me in any way, shape or form.”
In addition to the mailing of allegedly obscene material, Hardcore is also being charged with transmitting five allegedly obscene video clips over the Internet via the company’s website. Federal prosecutors said they are “seeking forfeiture of the ‘obscene’ films, all money made from sales of the films and all property used in the making of the films, including [Hardcore’s] home in Altadena, Calif.”
The DVD titles named in the indictment are “Max Hardcore Extreme 20 – Euro Edition,” “Pure Max 19 – Euro Edition,” “Max Hardcore Golden Guzzlers 7 – Euro Edition,” “Fists of Fury 4 – Euro Edition” and “Planet Max 16 – Euro Edition.”
The DOJ is seeking forfeiture of the films charged in the indictment, all profits from the distribution of the films, and all property used to facilitate the obscenity, including Little’s residence and the Internet domain names Maxhardcore.com, pissedonpornstars.com and Catalinaxxx.com.
The Maxhardcore site, in a warning on the front page, defends its films by saying the performers “are intended to be portrayed and understood as fully consenting adults.”
“Please note that these fictional accounts do not always exhibit safe sex, or the full range of real life relationships,” the Web site also says.