SHREVEPORT, LA — Daniel Smart is a 33-year-old now ex-website owner facing up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine – or both — after pleading guilty to federal obscenity charges in a Shreveport U.S. District Court.Smart, who will be sentenced on October 3rd, ran an internet business that reportedly sold an assortment of extreme video tapes that included bondage, bestiality, and snuff.
According to federal agents, who raided the man’s home and seized bank records, thousands of videotapes, DVDs, VCRs, satellite equipment, computers, and recording devices, the business was so successful that Smart had made more than $2.5 million from it during its seven years of operation.
The raid was the result of a tip that Smart was producing animal/human sex videos and led investigators to a variety of websites selling bondage and bestiality videos. Another tip came from a person concerned that an advertisement for participants in a kidnapping and torture video starring a woman called “Kinky Celine” was actually a snuff flick.
State police say that there was no woman and that Smart actually posed as Celine in order to encourage sales.
What started out as a local case quickly grew to international proportions when officials realized that the clientele for Smart’s videos extended to Canada, Thailand, and England. At that point, Homeland Security was called in.
