PANAMA – Justice delayed – it’s a phenomenon Fred Salaff is all too familiar with.The American porn producer, who has long been under country-wide house arrest in Panama, thought his day in court would finally come late last month, with a hearing scheduled for October 24th. October 24th has come and gone though, and the trial that could have finally brought his long ordeal to a close still has not taken place.
“The preliminary trial in Panama originally scheduled for October 24th has been postponed 3 times and still has not been rescheduled,” Salaff wrote in an email to YNOT and other members of the adult industry. “This is an ongoing absurdity and insult to both me and my co defendant, Stefano Simone.”
Most frustrating to Salaff is that nobody seriously appears to believe the Panamanian government has a case against him and yet he must wait for the trial, which seems stuck in an endless cycle of postponement and rescheduling.
“Our case which was totally manufactured by the Panamanian government has run its course and everyone in Panama knows that there IS NO CASE!” Salaff asserted in his email. “It seems that no one wants to hear the verdict – so there are the bureaucratic delays.”
Happily, Salaff says he does believe the bureaucratic wrangling is nearing its end and the trial will be held sometime this month. Unfortunately, Salaff’s legal defense is, once again, strapped for cash – extended beyond its limits by the continuous delays.
“Whatever funds we managed to obtain to get us to October 24th [are gone] and now the lawyers need small money to continue,” Salaff wrote in his recent email. “This is an outright appeal for some operating capital for our legal defense fund.”
Salaff’s last appeal for donations came in July, when Salaff also asked that his supporters bring whatever political pressure they could, in order to persuade Panamanian officials to enter charges against Panamanian police major Erik Estrada, who allegedly falsified documents in furtherance of arresting Salaff in January of 2005.
Salaff was arrested on January 23rd, 2005, and he and his company, Rio Bueno, LTD, SA, were charged with coercing prostitutes to perform in his adult productions, failing to obtain and file the proper paperwork to film adult movies in Panama, and not taking proper measures to prevent minors from being exposed to sexual activity.
All charges except the one regarding the exposure of minors to sexual activity were subsequently dropped almost immediately following the arrest, and that claim is founded upon nothing other than the uncorroborated claims of neighborhood children who purport to have climbed trees at the house next door to the residence where Salaff was filming, for the expressed purpose of viewing the sexual activity in question.
To donate to Salaff’s legal defense fund via Paypal, and to read all the sordid details of his apparently trumped up case, go to http://www.fredsalaff.com.
