
An Amateur Porno Set Off a Federal Witch Hunt - eplanit
https://www.thedailybeast.com/deep-sleep-how-an-amateur-porn-film-set-off-a-massive-federal-witch-hunt
======
vezycash
Summary: Young man has a passion & dream to make movies. He has a thriving
business but it's not enough to fund the movie. His friends agree to fund a
movie but with a clause - it must be a porno movie.

He researches existing literature and it sucks. He won't make porn. He'll make
a real movie that also has explicit sex.

He shoots normal scenes first, and sex scenes later. Sex scenes has some
issues like the actors unable to get erection and him not knowing how to
direct the scenes.

Movie is finished. He edits, distribution says he must include at least one
lesbian scene, some cum shots... things he'd cut out.

Movie is a success in theaters and gets sold out every single day and then all
hell breaks loose. The police comes after him. Lots of complaints were sent to
officials - some by people who hadn't actually watched the movie.

The film maker had used a property owned by the church without permission and
the church was the force behind the investigations.

The court case was a sham. The investigators invokes anti-fornication laws
100s of years old. And the cops (probably) sets the film maker up.

One of the lead actors commits suicide just as the case becomes a federal one.
The government takes all the earnings of the film, fines him, bans him from
film making for a few years and gives him a suspended jail sentence.

~~~
akvadrako
Are you implying laws should be ignored after a few years go by?

That’s not how laws work. Many of the laws that our important to daily life
are hundreds of years old.

~~~
madsmith
I think that’d be a wonderful thing if all laws had a natural sunset clause
and were forced to be renewed to see if they confirm to the standards of the
current society.

Private lewdness was one of the charges. Even the prosecutor said that it was
all a bit over the top but he had these laws as tools so he used them.

~~~
bonzini
In some jurisdictions (especially civil law, I think) the DA has no discretion
and must follow up on any accusation that could lead to criminal charges.
There is no possibility for selective enforcement.

This way the legislative branch has pressure to amend the criminal code as it
becomes obsolete---in this case, imagine if people had started accusing others
of fornication and private lewdness left and right, and DAs through the state
were forced to follow up on those accusations...

~~~
roenxi
> There is no possibility for selective enforcement.

There are huge holes in that. What if, hypothetically, the DA looks at a
situation and says 'there is no chance of criminal charges', but some 40-60%
of the population thinks there should be?

There is even a fairly topical case of that where a substantial number of
Democrat lawmakers are upset with how Barr is handling the Muller report.
Imagine squaring a similar case with a law that says prosecution must proceed
- I think Barr would be quite happy to claim there is no chance that an
Obstruction case would lead to criminal charges.

In the confrontational Western-style justice system the prosecutor always has
discretion. Not to acknowledge that just muddies the water in difficult cases.
It is much safer to accept that selective enforcement happens, that sometimes
the justice system fails to deliver justice and that there need to be release
valves in how people are appointed so the abuses don't get out of hand.

~~~
realityking
Note that this wide prosecutorial description is not universal among western
countries (maybe it is a common law thing?)

Germany has compulsory prosecution
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_prosecution](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_prosecution),
the German article Google Translated has mich more detail) and it’s subject to
review by the courts
([https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klageerzwingungsverfahren](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klageerzwingungsverfahren)
and
[https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermittlungserzwingungsverfah...](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermittlungserzwingungsverfahren))

Note that as a result of this plea bargaining are a rare thing.

------
ohashi
How unapologetic the prosecutor still is offends me. Trying to use anti
fornication laws from 1796 and knowing it's a miscarriage of justice? Yet
still thinks it's the right decision.

~~~
rayiner
The laws were on the books, and the public's opposition to what the movie-
maker was doing seems to fit in with the intent and scope of the laws. Maybe
you can blame him for selective enforcement, but I don't think that qualifies
as a miscarriage of justice. (That is, of course, assuming we take at face
value that his denial that he didn't steal and ship a copy of the movie to
Oklahoma.)

The prosecutor took measures to avoid normalizing what he and the community
saw as deviant behaviors. That's one of the key purposes of law: it allows
society to express its condemnation of certain conduct.

~~~
ouid
Selective enforcement is absolutely a miscarriage of justice. Justice is the
character of law that makes it fair. If you disagree with this, I would like
to hear your defense.

~~~
pawelmurias
The world is an inherently unfair place so it's dubious that laws that attempt
to regulate it should be fair.

~~~
roenxi
What you have there is an argument that is true but also unacceptable. It is
true that the world is unfair and that pushing it into a fair state is
impossible.

However we can't formally accept that as a society without kicking out one of
the main pillars supporting the justice system. If we expect and accept that
the justice system to produce unfair outcomes it becomes challenging to
justify having court appearances. We could get unfair outcomes much more
efficiently by just letting the police and DA arrest whoever with regular
internal purges against corruption.

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gumby
A friend of mine looked after his parents' house while they were on
sabbatical. He rented it out for porn shoots. His mother was furious when she
found out -- because he'd kept all the money himself.

Now they use airBNB.

Also a porn film was shot at the Stanford AI lab (the DC Powers building) in
the 1970s. The first image I ever saw transmitted over the arpanet (around
1978) was a (very grainy) frame from this film.

~~~
reilly3000
There are a million jokes, memes, fake stats, and even an Avenue Q song about
how the Internet is for Porn. I just can’t believe it has roots that far back!

------
Jedd
> So he shot all the non-sex scenes first, then went back to film the required
> sex.

This sounds a lot like the film Caligula, from 1979.

They got Malcolm McDowell, Teresa Ann Savoy, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole, John
Steiner, John Gielgud etc - but re-shot a bunch of pornographic scenes long
after principle photography had wrapped, and then edited the whole thing into
what's now a bit of a cult classic, but at the time was banned by most
countries censorship boards, disavowed by many who were involved in the
production, and the subject of a swathe of legal attacks.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula_\(film\))

------
jseliger
The '70s seem to have been an interesting time:
[https://longreads.com/2019/04/29/what-i-learned-from-
doing-a...](https://longreads.com/2019/04/29/what-i-learned-from-doing-
amateur-porn/) . Link is all text and presumably SFW, but caveat emptor.

~~~
joe_the_user
I remember in an interview, Henry Miller contended that in the time before
there was lot of media portrayals of sex that people actually engaged in sex
more.

It seems like the 70s were something of the time when the media began honestly
representing the social undercurrent of sex. But that representation was
perhaps part of it going away.

~~~
Larrikin
There was a sexual comedy that came out some years ago that said the openness
of sex led to an increase in social acceptance of more things out the norm.
The main characters however complain that they missed out because they grew up
in the 80s when HIV hit which led to a massive backlash and obvious public
health scare. The characters are all friends and they eventually plan a party
based on what they think they missed out on. The theory makes a little more
sense to me.

------
rayiner
The more I learn about the 1970s the more the 1980s makes sense to me.

~~~
sharkweek
I was born in the 80s so I have zero context for either decade.

Recently watched the CNN documentaries on each decade and it was truly eye
opening how nuts things were essentially every decade in one way or another.
But above all of then, the 70s seemed like the WEIRDEST time to me.

Highly recommend the documentaries - super informative. Was fun to re-live the
90s and 00s a bit too.

------
kurthr
Seems like maybe the writers of Boogie Nights were aware of this fiasco...

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kgwgk
What's "amateur" about that? It seems that the word appears only in the title.

Edit: he had a $25k budget at least (over $150k adjusted for inflation) and
while it was his first movie he hired professional performers and the
intention was the commercial exhibition of the film in movie theaters (as it
did happen).

~~~
Nevermark
He was clearly an amateur since he had never made any kind of movie.

But his intent was to make a professional/commercial film.

They are not necessarily disjoint concepts.

To top that off, at the end of the interview he gives himself a humorous
critique suggesting he found his own work failed to make the professional
grade.

~~~
kgwgk
I wouldn't classify as "amateur" a commercial movie where the lead roles are
played by professional actors, but that may be just me. The downvotes I got
agree with you. (Being a bad movie may make it look "amateurish", but that's
something different.)

~~~
reallydude
> a commercial movie where the lead roles are played by professional actors,

I'm not sure you've gotten anywhere, describing what professional means, when
you make it dependent on other entities as an explanation. There are plenty of
bad SAG actors. What about just saying "union production"? Although I think
that's the minimal bar, there have been non-union successes...which don't look
professional to me. eg
[https://www.reddit.com/r/acting/comments/a59tum/what_are_the...](https://www.reddit.com/r/acting/comments/a59tum/what_are_the_most_successful_nonunion_films_if_any/)

~~~
kgwgk
Are you suggesting that films can be classified as either “union” or
“amateur”? Star Wars is an amateur film then. And saying “amateur porno” is
redundant.

~~~
reallydude
> Star Wars is an amateur film then

Based on what? There are many unions and they have changed and stabilized over
time. SAG-AFTRA [https://www.sagaftra.org/about/our-
history](https://www.sagaftra.org/about/our-history) is the one that is
distinguishing. The Director's Guild (which George Lucas and others, had spats
with) or a writer's guild, etc have traditionally been little more than
elitist extortion committees.

~~~
kgwgk
Based on the SAG boycott on non-DGA directors.

------
pontifier
I hate our legal system. I don't have any faith that justice is found there.

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SlowRobotAhead
The beginning talks about how likable the guy is.

Greatly discusses the legal trouble his film caused.

The ends with him agreeing how the film sucks and maybe the prosecutor was
right! (EDIT: he says this as a joke, apparently this needs to be pointed
out?)

...

I get it. That’s a good story and he absolutely does come off as a likable
guy.

~~~
unknownsavage
For people who haven't read the article this is extremely misleading:

> The ends with him agreeing how the film sucks and maybe the prosecutor was
> right!

He says that, only as a joke that it's so bad it should've been illegal. While
in reality a great mis-justice was done to the man, and he was railroaded into
accepting a plea-deal due to the gravity of the unfair charges.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Yea, that’s the point. I don’t remember saying “don’t read the article”. He
makes a joke about his previous work and that’s a likable thing to do.

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lioon121
tl;dr

