CHICKASHA, OK — While his softcore empire continues to churn out product and even rattle protective Australians, Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis languishes in jail for federal tax evasion. According to Francis, languishing isn’t the only thing he’s been doing while in jail; he’s also been tortured.As Francis explains it, his trip from jail in Florida to jail in Nevada involved a highly unpleasant stop along the way. It was during this stop in Oklahoma’s Grady County jail that Francis claims he was mistreated.
For two weeks the Oklahoma authorities held Francis. Two weeks during which the same authorities developed a distinct opinion about their celebrity guest.
“He was quite a character,” Sheriff Kieran McMullen told the media.
As jail administer Shane Wyatt remembers it, “Mr. Francis was treated like every inmate that comes through the Grady County Law Enforcement Center.”
If that includes being denied medication or social visits and threatened with naked bondage to a chair for 48 hours, then Francis agrees.
Attorneys for Francis report that the inmate’s girlfriend flew to Oklahoma during his May 17th – June 4th incarceration, only to be forced to wave at him from the parking lot. Further, they contend that when he was told he was being moved to his current Reno, NV location, he was pulled out of the transport bus line, told he was “going nowhere,” ordered back to his cell, and forced to give up not merely his bedding and blankets, but also his commissary contents including clothing, food, and hygiene products. No replacements were provided “for days,” according to his legal team.
When Francis repeatedly begged for a blanket, “guards threatened to strip him and strap him naked to a chair, with only a hole for defecation, for 48 hours” the lawyers explain, adding that “Grady County jail officials were enjoying torturing Mr. Francis so much that, at one point, they even refused to turn him over to the U.S. Marshal.”
McMullen considers the accusations ridiculous, pointing out that the kind of chair Francis’ attorneys describe exists, but is only used for inmates at risk of injury to themselves, which he doesn’t remember being the case with Francis. He does concede that Francis’ move to Reno was delayed once it was learned that his family members had somehow discovered his transportation date.
“That’s a security risk,” McMullen explains. “We don’t tell anybody when a prisoner is going to be moved because if somebody knows, who knows what they could set up? The transport deputies came to me and told me about it, and we pulled him.”
As for his commissary complaints, McMullen insists that no inmates are allowed to take commissary items with them and that the chilly Francis was never denied a blanket, although the guards did need to “take one from him, because he was given more than what is allowed.”
Meanwhile, Francis also alleges mistreatment during time served in both Florida and Atlanta, GA. Inappropriate behavior exhibited by Francis during his legal woes has been explained by counsel as stemming from Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, which has been mismanaged while incarcerated, resulting in instability on Francis’ part.
Francis told New York gossip column PageSix that he fears for his life if he is ever returned to the Florida prison system, where he insists he was starved and taunted. “These are scary people down there,” he explains. “if I get sent back, they will retaliate. I think I would have been dead or I’d be drooling into a cup.”
Meanwhile, Sydney company Zeal Entertainment, owner of the Australian Girls Gone Wild franchise, have rattled those who don’t approve of hot young women smooching all over one another while under the influence of alcohol and in close proximity to a camera.
When Zeal proposed to host a boat cruise on the Gold Coast, the authorities went wild, concerned that vacationing students might be somehow lured into behavior otherwise best left undone. Although Zeal owner Ryan Bowman had hoped to sell $70 tickets for the cruise, which would be filled with “dancing, singing, maybe a bit of nudity,” he ultimately reports that “plans were never finalized and tickets never went on sale.”
Nonetheless, the annual 10-day “schoolies week” celebration resulted in an estimated attendance of 133,000 people and included more than 600 arrests, with additional antics being reported in Phillip Island and Lorne. Most arrests related to public nuisance and disorderly activities.
Bowman’s opinion of the negative hype and hysteria that met his initial plans is that it was “entirely inappropriate, inaccurate, and may be actionable.”
There’s plenty of action in the world of Girls Gone Wild — and some of it is even on camera.
