WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Justice announced yesterday that two more defendants, Clarence Thomas Gartman and former Houston Police Officer Brent Alan McDowell, have been convicted by a federal jury in Dallas for their part in a business that sold simulated rape videos over the Internet. A third defendant, Lou Anthony Santilena, was acquitted.Gartman was convicted on one count of conspiracy to distribute obscene materials and one count of mailing obscene materials and aiding and abetting, while McDowell was convicted of one count of mailing obscene matter and aiding and abetting.
Dallas-based attorney Andrew Chatham, who represented Gartman, told YNOT he believes his client should appeal, given the “uncertain status of obscenity laws, in general.”
“I always advise my clients in a criminal case to have another attorney look at what I did,” Chatham added. “It’s better for an appellate attorney to look at the case as a whole, rather than isolated events occurring at trial.”
Evidence showed that beginning in 1998, Gartman and McDowell launched a site at the domain forbiddenvideos.com, which was used to advertise and distribute videos which depicted rape scenes, as well as “sexual torture and urination and defecation in conjunction with sex act,” according to a DOJ press release.
Later, the defendants also distributed the obscene videos through a collection of websites managed from the Northern District and elsewhere, which enabled customers in the United States and throughout the world to download obscene digital video images or to view digital streaming video.
“The obscene videos ordered from the Web site were initially sent by U.S. mail and U.S. Postal Service from locations within the Northern District of Texas,” the DOJ stated in its release. “(T)he defendants also distributed the obscene videos through a collection of websites managed from the Northern District and elsewhere, which enabled customers in the United States and throughout the world to download obscene digital video images or to view digital streaming video.”
Gartman and McDowell’s site was discovered during a government investigation into a Texas couple distributing similar materials, Garry Layne Ragsdale and his wife, Tamara Michelle Ragsdale. According to the DOJ, Gartman and the Ragsdales were business partners in distributing videos until a dispute arose between them in early 1998, which dissolved the partnership.
The Ragsdales were convicted in October of 2003 on obscenity charges related to the video distribution business they continued to operate after parting ways with Gartman.
In March of 2004, U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater sentenced Garry Ragsdale to 33 months in prison and Tamara Ragsdale to 30 months. Their convictions were subsequently upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last year, and in February of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the Ragsdales’ case.
Gartman faces up to 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines, while McDowell could get five years and a fine of up to $250,000. Both men are scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Barefoot Sanders on June 15th.
While the DOJ’s press release seems to imply that Gartman and McDowell sought to avoid prosecution by leaving the country – the DOJ release notes that both defendants are U.S. citizens, but were living in Canada at the time the indictment was returned by a grand jury in May of 2004 – Chatham said his client was not “on the lam,” and that Gartman turned himself in when the indictment was returned.
The DOJ touted the convictions of Gartman and McDowell as more proof of the federal government’s success in combating “obscenity.”
“With these convictions, six defendants in three different cases have been convicted in the Northern District of Texas in recent months of distributing obscene material,” said U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper. “We will continue to work closely with the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force to ensure that those who traffic in obscenity are brought to justice.”
Chatham, like many attorneys – and what appears to be a growing number of law enforcement professionals – questions the merit and necessity of the government’s entire anti-obscenity campaign.
“The government has issued directives straight from the top to the FBI to make prosecution of adult pornography a priority,” said Chatham, but he said it’s not at all clear the public shares the government’s sense that obscenity is worthy of being a top priority issue for law enforcement.
Chatham noted that while a previous jury found Gartman’s co-defendant Lou Satilena guilty of obscenity, this jury watched the same tape which formed the basis for that obscenity conviction, and concluded that the tape was not obscene.
“What kind of message does that send?” Chatham asked rhetorically, adding that at the very least, it indicates an inconsistency in the perceived “community standards” from one jury to the next.
Noting that he’s not a First Amendment attorney and that he typically doesn’t handle many obscenity cases, Chatham observed “I defend people charged with real crimes, too.”
