LAKELAND, FL – Chris Wilson’s websites have raised eyebrows and attracted law enforcement attention in the past, but he never expected it to lead to jail time – especially before a conviction. Yet today he sits in the Polk County jail, accused of 300 misdemeanor obscenity counts and one felony obscenity charge – and unable to raise enough money for bail.Wilson, who used to run Core39.com and MessedUp.com, recently attracted mainstream media attention when it was revealed that American service personnel in the Middle East were submitting photographs of dead Iraqi insurgents to his website. Yet in spite of the international hue and cry about this activity, it was “obscenity” that has kept the former Eagle Lake police officer on ice since Friday.
According to Polk County Sheriff, Grady Judd, there’s nothing unusual about the number of misdemeanor charges piled on Wilson.
“The law is quite clear that each photograph or each video is a count,” he explained. “Had we gone through his entire Web page, we probably could have made several thousand more charges.”
The 301 lodged against Wilson are more than enough to keep him in jail for the foreseeable future, given that his family has been unable to find a bail bondsman willing to write that many bonds. With each misdemeanor charge set at $500 and the felony at $1,000, the bond total for the accused webmaster is a tidy $151,000. Normally, a 10-percent payment would be all that is required for Wilson to see the light of day from outside his cell, making bail a painful but not unattainable $15,000. Unfortunately for Wilson, since Florida state law requires a minimum payment per charge of $100, his family would need to come up with $30,100 that would never be returned to them. Additionally, family members would need to pledge collateral sufficient to cover the complete bail of $151,000. Were Wilson to fail to appear for court, the entire amount would be forfeited.
According to Wilson’s attorney, his family asked the State Attorney General to combine all 301 counts into one change so that they could make the bail amount, but their request was denied.
“We felt the original charges as filed were appropriate,” Chip Thullbery, administrative assistant state attorney explains. “Certainly, it was not done for harassment. It was done because he possessed that amount of material.”
Wilson’s initial website specialized in amateur photos sent in by amateur photographers featuring their wives or girlfriends engaged in sexually explicit behavior. When he began offering free access to the site for military personnel stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq to those who could prove their claim to be doing so, the entire world noticed – because the evidence included photos of burned and mutilated bodies, allegedly belonging to Iraqi and Afghan insurgents.
Larry Walters (www.FirstAmendment.com) specializes in First Amendment law and represents several adult industry business owners, including Wilson. He believes that the situation is “inappropriate” and a form of “pre-conviction punishment.” To assist Wilson’s family in raising bail, Walters set up an area on his website where donations can be made while a dedicated site, www.FreeChris.org, was finalized. Although the site can not currently accept electronic donations, mailing information for those who wish to send checks is available. “It’s amazing the level of support out there,” Walters says. “I’m sure that Chris will be humbled by the degree of support from people he doesn’t even know. We’re very concerned about the impact of this case and his position, sitting in jail now for days waiting to get out on a very high bond.”
Walters, when asked about the possibility of an FBI short list of sites to be targeted for prosecution, admits that although such a list is possible, he has not heard of such a thing. “I know that there is a short list of the type of content that they are looking at and don’t like, but as far as a list of specific websites, no, I’m not aware of that. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were such a list, but I would be surprised if such a list made it out into the public in any way before people are actually arrested. That’s the kind of thing that’s kept under lock and key. But you never know in this age of electronic communications. Things can get out, so it’s possible that something leaked.”
YNOT Radio’s LAJ and YNOT Bob will interview Walters on Wednesday, October 12, beginning at noon PST. Although the show’s format is usually geared toward lighter fare, LAJ explains the decision to cover the heavy topic.
“When a high profile and hard hitting case like this pops up, we always choose to alter the format of our show a little bit,” he explains. “Something newsworthy like this supersedes everything else. We think that having Larry Walters on the show is going to really make a difference to the way a lot of people view this business and maybe even how they choose to run their own.”
