AKRON, OH — While Girls Gone Wild mastermind Joe Francis dished gossip on the Howard Stern Show about banging mainstream entertainment brats Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, the promoter of his Akron, OH tour stop braced himself for prison.Although Francis has been forced to put a shovel into his deep financial pockets while simultaneously scrambling his legal team to keep him from the indignity of actually doing community service for 2257-related paperwork issues, Carl Moss has had to fight his own battles.
While his boss has once again avoided any legal findings of wrongdoing, Moss has decided to avoid the misery of a felony court appearance next week and, instead, agreed to plead guilty to a first-degree misdemeanor for child endangerment. Normally that would only spell six months in jail but, unfortunately for Moss, he was on probation for a 2002 theft when things got wild at the Akron Girls Gone Wild shooting, so he has four years behind bars to look forward to serving.
And Moss doesn’t have anyone going easy on him. Summit County Common Pleas Judge Patricia Cosgrove is quoted in the Akron Beacon Journal as saying that she “will not entertain judicial release, boot camp, or early release.”
All of Moss’ troubles concern 17-year-old Nina R, a Girls Gone Wild party participant who managed to get falling down drunk, as well as alternately top and bottom naked while dancing on the bar top of Mango’s nightclub in downtown Akron last September. The girl claimed several days later that the hard partying stopped being fun for her once she was lured inside the Girls Gone Wild tour van and raped while in a drunken stupor.
Moss attempted to depict himself in the press as a knight in shining virtue, who helped the girl find her clothing and then got her home safely. Prosecutors saw things differently and argued that Moss actually helped the girl procure booze and engage in her wanton displays of underage flesh.
Although authorities ultimately found themselves in the middle of a she-said/he-said argument, they have been able to charge Mango’s owner Edmond Jaber of felony counts that have inspired him to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges that include selling alcohol to a minor. He now has a six-month suspended sentence and owes $2,000 in fines.
Nina’s mother, Lynnette Thomas, told the Akron Beacon Journal that “It is good that Moss is out of circulation for a bit,” since she’s still angry that he is the only one who will see time for the night’s alleged outrage. According to Thomas, “the ‘teen parties’ at downtown bars, where kids get shot and where predators find their prey” continue unabated.
Mango’s manager Holly Everson still faces misdemeanor charges and is scheduled for trial this week.
