STAUNTON, VA — The opposing sides in the After Hours Video case have signed a court order that not only prevents the adult store from appealing its misdemeanor obscenity convictions and reopening, but also stops the local prosecutor from pursuing additional charges against owners and employees.In August 2008, a seven-person jury convicted After Hours owner Rick Krial and his company, LSP of Virginia LLC, on two of six misdemeanor obscenity counts filed against them. During the same trial, store clerk Tinsley Embrey was acquitted of the two misdemeanor charges facing him. Prosecutor Raymond C. Robertson swore he would pursue convictions on 16 additional charges that remained outstanding from the same raid. Under Virginia law, any future obscenity convictions automatically would be classified as felonies.
Krial already has closed the store and will not open any other adult business in Staunton, according to the terms of the agreement, which also requires him to pay a fine of $2,500 plus $160 in court costs. The fees pale in comparison to the $150,000 Krial has said he spent on his defense.
Robertson, whom defense attorneys, colleagues and the public at large derided as arrogant, stubborn and religiously motivated before and during the trial, said the ends justified the means.
“It was worth it,” he told The News Leader. “We got stuff out of Staunton that breeds other crimes and socially unacceptable behavior.”
Robertson has said one of his primary objections to the adult content seized during a November 2007 raid on the then-one-month-old After Hours Video was that the material didn’t reflect “real life.”
“There’s never venereal disease or pregnancies in these films,” he told the court during hearings about the final disposition of the case.
That — and not vindication of the moral crusade of which he had been accused — is why he was glad to see Staunton’s only adult business close, he later told The News Leader.
“It’s just about caring about the quality of life that you have in your jurisdiction,” he told the newspaper. “There’s a reason we don’t have an AIDS epidemic in this area, you know?”
