WASHINGTON, DC — Brent Ward, the current head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, has a fan in the person of Phil Burress, the president of the Ohio-based anti-porn group Citizens for Community Values.“He’s one of my heroes,” Burress told the Salt Lake Tribune in a profile the paper published about Ward, who served as the U.S. attorney for Utah between 1981 and 1989.
“I wish the Department of Justice was full of Brent Wards,” added Burress.
Burress’ admiration for Ward stems from his personal commitment to the prosecution of obscenity; Ward is what First Amendment attorneys often call a “true believer” – he’s not just doing a job when he prosecutes pornographers for obscenity, it’s more like he’s carrying out a mission.
Ward is also recognized as one of the true veterans of the pornographic portion of America’s so-called “Culture War,” a man who earned his anti-porn stripes as one of the prosecutorial foot soldiers in the Reagan Administration’s crackdown on the adult entertainment industry.
“Back in the ‘80s, Brent was one of the two or three prosecutors willing to take on pornography,” observed Robert Peters of Morality In Media.
Ward also testified before the infamous Meese Commission on pornography in the 80s, and in 1985 devised a strategy for “testing the endurance” of porn companies by filing charges in multiple states, concurrently, forcing adult businesses to fight costly court battles on several fronts at once.
“As profitable as these enterprises may be, there is a limit to the prison terms, fines and forfeiture of assets to which obscenity distributors will subject themselves,” Ward wrote at the time.
Meese initiated an enormous crackdown on porn companies, choosing Ward to head up a group of U.S. attorneys to combat the porn industry and consulting with Ward regularly on obscenity-related issues.
Now, some 20 years later, Ward again finds himself taking on the porn industry on behalf of a Republican administration, fighting a similar battle, but in a very different world.
The first big success of Ward’s new tenure came against Mantra Films, better known by the title of their primary money-maker, Girls Gone Wild. Ward led the prosecution of Mantra, which eventually resulted in a plea bargain under which the company and its owners will pay $2.1 million in fines and perform some community service work – but not spend so much as a day in jail for violating the federal record keeping requirements delineated in 18 USC 2257.
Ward told the Tribune that the fight against porn is a war worth waging, arguing pornography has serious consequences – all negative, naturally – for American society, ranging from increased violence against women to helping child predators “groom” their victims.
“We’re not going to prosecute it away, but it’s important, I think, that Americans see their government trying to do something about it,” Ward said.
That “something” will be carried out by Ward’s Obscenity Task Force, which is staffed with four prosecutors, 10 FBI agents, and a postal inspector. The job of Ward’s task force is to assemble cases that can be handed over to U.S. attorneys of individual states for prosecution – prosecutions that are increasingly based on online distribution of allegedly obscene materials.
The effort is an attempt to revive the prosecution of obscenity crimes, which tailed off to almost nothing under the Clinton Administration, during which the online adult entertainment industry grew from its humble BBS roots into the flourishing, reportedly multi-billion dollar industry that it is today.
“To me, it was clearly a big mistake,” Ward said of the Clinton Administration’s laissez faire approach to internet porn. “Vigorous action, when internet dissemination of pornography was growing and still in its infancy might have had a significant deterrent effect and we might not be where we are now.”
According to some who squared off against Ward in the 80s, Ward is likely to take his new job to heart.
“He was unwilling to acknowledge that there was a place for any kind of adult material in the framework of the First Amendment,” said attorney Wade Smith, who represented a mail-order company called P.H.E, Inc. that fought back against Ward’s multi-jurisdictional charge filing technique in the 80s.
“As a matter of fact, he was extremely and completely rigid in wanting us out of business,” Smith told the Tribune.
P.H.E argued that Ward’s “endurance test” for adult companies represented an abuse of prosecutorial power, an argument that the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found persuasive.
In their decision, the 10th Circuit wrote that the charges against P.H.E represented “the tainted fruit of a prosecutorial attempt to curtail P.H.E.’s future First Amendment protected speech.”
Ward’s multi-state-prosecution technique, the Tribune notes, hasn’t been used again in obscenity prosecutions since the 10th Circuit’s ruling.
Another of Ward’s former nemeses, Utah-based attorney Andrew McCullough, said that Ward’s efforts left a huge imprint and has led to Utah being considered hostile ground for the adult entertainment industry. For example, McCullough notes, many adult video distributors will not ship product into Utah, at all.
“They do that purely because of Mr. Ward,” McCullough asserted. “Utah has a reputation of coming down on porn to the point where people wouldn’t mail one in. Brent Ward stamped that [anti-porn reputation] so loudly on us that we can’t shake it.”
Burress believes, given the proper resources, Ward could have the same effect, nationwide.
“He’s like Patton. He’s run out of gas,” Burress said, suggesting that he believes Ward’s efforts are not sufficiently funded or supported by the DOJ. “Give him some gas and he’ll win the war.”
