SALT LAKE CITY – The owner of adult entertainment and lingerie stores in Utah did break the law – when he sold a pornographic video to a 17-year-old girl, the Utah Supreme Court has ruled.
John Haltom, owner of “Dr. John’s Lingerie and Novelty Boutique,” was convicted of dealing harmful material to a minor back in 2003. Prosecutors say the teenage girl showed her driver’s license when she bought the explicit video, but was allowed to purchase it even though she was a minor.
However, he appealed the verdict, claiming that police officers – not he – broke the law, when they sent the underage girl inside of his store to buy the video. Haltom says it was a case of entrapment.
Subsequent appeals courts refused to overturn the conviction, and the Utah Supreme Court on Friday also upheld the ruling by a unanimous 5-to-0 vote.
After his conviction, Haltom served 30 days in jail and paid a $2,000 fine.
This is not the first time Dr. John has been targeted by prosecutors. In 2004, he pleaded ‘no contest’ to distributing obscene material at one of his stores in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. In 2003, he served six months in a Nebraska jail for selling an obscene video at his Omaha store.