YNOT – A federal grand jury on April 14 added five new federal obscenity counts to the three on which adult fetish filmmaker Ira Isaacs has been awaiting re-trial since a 2008 mistrial. Isaacs’ attorney said he expects his client to face arraignment on the new charges May 2, when pretrial proceedings on the earlier charges are scheduled to begin in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
The new indictments allege Isaacs and his companies Stolen Car Films and LA Media distributed by mail obscene matter containing explicit depictions of scatology and bestiality. The five allegedly obscene titles — Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 7, Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 10, Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 38, Trailers and Japanese Doggie 3 Way — were sent to consumers inside and outside California between January and early April of this year, according to the indictment.
The three outstanding charges, brought forward in 2007, involve the explicit films Gang Bang Horse “Pony Sex Game”, Mako’s First Time Scat and Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 7. Isaacs faced a jury on those charges in June 2008, only to have a mistrial declared when Judge Alex Kozinski recused himself following a public scandal that erupted when the Los Angeles Times reported the discovery of explicit pornography on Kozinski’s personal website.
Kozinski, a noted Constitutional conservative proponent of free speech, initially accepted the blame for the images, saying he found them humorous. Later, he said at least some of the images belonged to his adult son.
In the intervening two years, Isaacs’ attorney Roger Jon Diamond has attempted to have the previous counts dismissed under double jeopardy standards, but his arguments have been dismissed instead.
Both sets of indictments seek, among other things, forfeiture of property and profits obtained from allegedly illegal activity or potentially used in the commission of the alleged crimes.
Perhaps coincidentally, the new indictments arose amid an outcry from social conservatives and far-right religious activists claiming U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration are “soft on porn.” Anti-porn proponents within Congress, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch [R-Utah], earlier this month sent a scathing letter to Holder demanding he take action against obscenity after news broke that Holder disbanded the previous administration’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force within the Department of Justice.
