On April 8, 2008, I was accused by the U.S. Justice Department of breaking U.S. obscenity law by sending two of my company’s movies, “Milk Nymphos” and “Storm Squirters 2,” to an FBI agent in Washington, D.C. The agent had gone on my company’s Website, www.EvilAngel.com, and determined that these movies were prosecutable under the obscenity statute in that community. At the moment we are all waiting for the judge to set a trial date, or to throw the case out based on motions my lawyers have made.
Then, out of the blue, the Justice Department recently filed this:
MOTION IN LIMINE TO PRECLUDE EVIDENCE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. JOHN STAGLIANO
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Crim. No. 08-093 (RJL)
The U.S. requests the court to prevent defendants, their attorneys and their witnesses from using testimony, remarks, evidence, questions, arguments or other expression relating to matters referred to below. The government believes that such expression would be inadmissible in court, confusing or misleading to jurors and irreparably damaging to the government’s case.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Defendant Stagliano has appeared in numerous media outlets to assert his personal views on this prosecution since he was indicted and arraigned in this case. In the context of trial, defendant’s statements would be irrelevant, inflammatory and, in some instances, blatant misstatements of the law. For example, in several interviews conducted by reason.tv, defendant stated:
…the reason why I think this case is important is because it is another area where the government thinks they should be able to run our lives…
…that’s what the government wants to suppress. That, to me, is just rotten. Kick the [ ] bastards out, but that’s not going to happen because they are the ones who are controlling us…
…I didn’t know I was breaking the law… What law? Somebody’s going to interpret that I was breaking the law. That’s just really bad…
…Do you want to live in a kind of country where the government can just say I don’t like you, I don’t like your ideas and what you are doing and let’s just put you in jail…
Defendant also agreed with the interviewer that if convicted of the charged offenses he could “spend the rest of his life in jail.”
In another interview conducted by reason.tv, the defendant stated,
…DVD sales are going down rather rapidly right now, and people are consuming their pornography on the Internet. And the community standard of the Internet is very different.
When this Miller case came down in 1973, pornography, if it was going to be shown anywhere, was going to be shown in a theater. The theater was going to be in a public street where everybody could drive by the marquee and see that it’s there, and their children could see that it’s there. Everything had to be out in the open.
That’s a way different world than what we have today, where people consume pornography in the privacy of their own homes, just on their computers. It’s not in the public’s face at all when it’s there.
In that same interview, in response to the question, “Why do you think the prosecutions is coming now?,” he stated,
Maybe they wanted to do it quickly before the election so that they could throw a bone to the religious right and say, “See, we’re upholding what you want us to uphold, so vote for us; keep us in office.”
Finally, in an interview appearing in the Los Angeles Times on July 3, 2008, defendant stated,
Is the Times suggesting that enforcing obscenity laws will stop people from breaking other laws? Aren’t we already at the point where a government official can get you on some law somewhere if he doesn’t like you? Isn’t that what an obscenity really is? I have no idea when I’m breaking this law.
I’m amazed! The Justice Department is repeating some of my best lines. I’m glad the judge will get to hear them. But how could I get in trouble for just talking about my case?
The Justice Department then gives a legal analysis of why what I said could not possibly be heard by the jurors. The problem is that when I was saying these things I was not rehearsing my testimony at trial. I was challenging this law in a public forum. That is what democracy is. If the accused cannot say in public, or in a courtroom, that he thinks the law is bad, where can he say this?! After he is in jail? How stupid. Lawyers and judges treat me and the jury like children, for our own good of course.
Each of these above quotes is taken out of context. I’m fine with that for most of them, except the second one. What I said before that quote is relevant to Evil Angel customers. Here’s the entire quote:
“The real key here is, this is a way for the average guy alone at home to get off — or girl; I’ve known a lot of girls that are into stuff like this, especially the squirting stuff because that focuses on female orgasm, and so it’s a real prejudiced movie, I mean y’know, male orgasm’s all over porno movies; female orgasm is not… The thing is, pornography is the way for people with less money and less power to get off. If you’ve got lots of money, if you’ve got prestige, if you were a king or a nobleman a couple hundred years ago, or if today you’re like a high-priced lawyer or a congressman or a senator … or a governor of New York, you can afford call girls. You can get off. You can have your sexual desires satisfied, but if you’re a normal working guy, you can’t afford that. And this (porno) is what you get off on, and this is what your pleasure is, and that’s what the government wants to suppress. And that, to me, is just rotten. That’s just, you know, kick the motherf… ’scuse me, bastards out, but it’s not gonna happen, because they’re the ones who’re controlling us.”
Incredibly, the Justice Department is so paranoid that a jury member will hear this that they have filed this motion to shut me up. Apparently it is very important that jurors are not confused by the context of a law in society. They must approach this case as an exercise in logic. Did I violate the obscenity law or not? But please do not worry about any of the apparent vagaries or ill-defined terms in the law. You need to figure this out for yourself, without reference to the society we live in, or any experience or ideas you have about that society, other than whether or not you think your neighbors would go, “Yecch!” if they saw one of my indicted movies. Now is that most of their neighbors who would be disgusted, or every single one of them? There is, of course, no room for different lifestyles in this bizarrely created legal world.