Uncle Sam In Gutter

Warning: Obscenity case not suitable for women, children, Utahans

JUNE 19--In what may be the filthiest criminal complaint ever filed, federal prosecutors have charged a pair of Ohio businessmen with selling obscene movies via their web site. According to a complaint unsealed last Thursday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, the FBI last year launched an undercover probe of Movies by Mail, a Cleveland business owned by brothers Sami and Michael Harb. After placing an online order, Agent Martin Schwarz received a package containing "pornographic DVDs and fourteen condoms." As Schwarz noted in the complaint, he is a Utah resident "familiar with the community standards" of the ultra-conservative state. As such, the agent concluded that a trio of DVDs he reviewed were obscene. "None of the three films has a plot line. The films consist entirely of scenes of hard core sexual acts being performed by multiple men and women," Schwarz reported. Then the G-man provided a graphic recap of each film, two of which featured Paul Little (a/k/a Max Hardcore), who himself was named last month in a ten-count federal obscenity indictment. Be warned, as described by Schwarz, the goings on in titles like "Extreme Associates: Cocktails 5" are not for the squeamish (though the X-rated action is the daily province of smut busters assigned to the FBI's National Adult Obscenity Initiative Task Force). (14 pages)

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