PHOENIX – Calling the operation a brothel in disguise, police arrested nine people Thursday in a raid on a Phoenix business that offered customized adult videos to those willing to pay to star in an amateur porn flick.
New Media Studios owner William James Hartwell, 52, and eight women seemed unsurprised by the action.
“We’ve been expecting you guys for a long time,” Hartwell reportedly told the arresting officers. “We run a safe, legal business.”
The company operated in a nondescript, unmarked building near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and solicited customers and models by placing classified ads on websites.
According to The [Arizona] Republic, the arrests marked the end of a six-month investigation initiated by a tip. Court documents indicate clients visited the studio by appointment and underwent only a visual inspections for sexually transmitted infections prior to engaging in sexual activity.
The women employed by the studio, one of whom was nine months pregnant, told clients they were paid to appear in explicit photographs, but “whatever happens, happens.” Schedulers, however, told clients they “could do whatever [they] wanted,” according to warrant-support documents filed with the court.
Prostitution is illegal in Arizona, though state statutes do not specifically prohibit the production of pornography. The law does prohibit the production and sale of “obscene material,” but an obscenity determination requires a jury to weigh in on the material’s relative literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
The case will be an interesting test of Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s hard-line stand against pornography. Montgomery has said he will employ prostitution statutes to prosecute any porn cases presented to his office.
