PHOENIX – William James Hartwell has spent the past four years in court. He’ll spend the next 24 in prison.
On Aug. 25, Hartwell was sentenced to considerably fewer than the 44 years prosecutors sought after his April conviction on 10 felony charges including operating a house of prostitution, pandering and sexual assault. The court leaned toward the prosecution’s assertion Hartwell, 57, viewed women as nothing more than a commodity and showed no remorse for his behavior.
For his part, Hartwell insisted his company, New Media Studios, produced constitutionally protected self-expression by helping clients live out their fantasy of starring in a porn film. The company operated in a nondescript, unmarked building near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and solicited customers and models through classified ads and on websites. The endeavor reportedly raked in profits of $40,000 monthly.
“We run a safe, legal business,” Hartwell told police at the time of his arrest, apparently banking on a lack of specificity in Arizona law: Prostitution is illegal in the state, but statutes do not specifically prohibit the production of pornography.
In its verdict, the court called the business a “cleverly disguised brothel.” According to court documents, the women who worked for Hartwell agreed. Several of the eight arrested with him pleaded guilty to prostitution charges and agreed to testify against their former employer in exchange for reduced sentences.
As the trial unfolded, the women testified all customers paid a receptionist, which Hartwell said would protect the “porn girls” from prostitution charges since they personally never engaged in an exchange of cash for sexual services. Hartwell provided customers with condoms, cameras and lighting equipment, and the women posed for a brief video or 10 still photographs in order to complete the ruse. After that, the women said Hartwell told them, “whatever happens, happens.”
Acting on an anonymous tip in 2012, undercover officers posed as prospective employees and customers during the sting operation that led to Hartwell’s arrest.
