ADAM & EVE RECOGNIZES 25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF FEDERAL RAID
Hillsborough, NC — Adam & Eve and AdamAndEve.com<http://AdamAndEve.com>
(www.AdamAndEve.com/news<http://www.AdamAndEve.com/news>) are known as America’s
most trusted source for adult products. It’s hard to imagine now, but 25 years
ago this week, the then small but thriving mail order company was raided by 37
armed law enforcement agents.
On May 29, 1986, and backed by the Reagan administration’s Meese Commission,
prosecutors declared Adam & Eve president Phil Harvey a peddler of obscenity.
The surprise raid, in which 118 employees were detained, searched, subpoenaed
and held for questioning, yielded no evidence of illegal activity. It did,
however, lead to eight years of legal battles, nearly a million dollars in legal
fees and historical changes in the justice system itself.
A lot has changed since the raid of 1986, but many longtime Adam & Eve employees
remember the fear surrounding the events that took place that day.
Peg Eaton, who has been with the company 30 years, recalls it this way: “It was
a scary event…very intimidating. The officers searched our pocketbooks and
briefcases and took our pictures. When I told the agent I didn’t want my picture
taken, he said they could come to my house to get a picture. They wouldn’t even
let our attorney into the building to talk to us.”
Adam & Eve marketing director Cindy Lutz remembers the solidarity she felt,
standing side-by-side with co-workers over the copy machines they rented so that
authorities wouldn’t take the only copies of company records after the raid. “I
had a tremendous faith that we weren’t doing anything wrong,” she says.
Vice President of Adam & Eve, David Groves, says, “It was a horrible ordeal for
the employees. After being searched, interrogated and subpoenaed, a lot of
people went home scared to death… afraid they’d be arrested and lose their jobs.
But when they came to work the next day – and almost everyone did – that fear
turned to anger. They wanted to fight back.”
Today, Adam & Eve is recognized as a leader in adult business. Along with its
respected product review process and involvement with noted sex therapists, Adam
& Eve employs 375 at its headquarters in the Meadowlands Business Park in
Hillsborough, North Carolina. Despite the government’s attempts to shut it down,
Adam & Eve has grown and flourished. It recently celebrated its 40th
anniversary, and has received numerous national and international awards
(including being named “Business of the Year” by the local Chamber of Commerce
in 2005).
For more information on Adam & Eve and AdamAndEve.com<http://AdamAndEve.com>,
please contact director of public relations Katy Zvolerin at 919.644.8100 x 3121
or katy@adameve.com<mailto:katy@adameve.com>
America is the home of the free…
Sounds nice in a speech anyways. In reality over the last 50 years our “free” ways are disappearing as each administration ramps up the loss of our freedoms and our Bill of Rights all in the name of “National Security”. I think our forefathers would be turning over in the graves if they knew how what they created has turned out to be.
Governments and other “non-profits” keep stage playing the role of God over us and trying to kick us all out of the Garden of Eden; domain of the knowledge of Good and Evil and Immortality (as “stars”/”models”).
@Jeremy – Have you seen the 3-part BBC documentary, “The Power of Nightmares”?
@Karmafan
I think our forefather’s would especially be turning their graves seeing all of the official ‘God’ statements that have come around since Eisenhower fought for it…
Happy anniversary and many younger people in the porn business today have no idea that people actually spent time in jail for producing and distributing hardcore movies. Of course the recent John Stagliano and Max Hardcore cases reminds us all that we are only a door knock away from a potential insane situation so with that in mind I say congratulations to Adam & Eve for 25 years and I predict they just might be the company that goes another 25. My company X-Play has enjoyed a fantastic relationship with A&E over the years as they have pretty much distributed our entire line of movies through their catalog and some of our biggest selling parodies/comedies like Not Bewitched XXX and Flight Attendants through their movie division. Congrats Adam & Eve and to all of the other pioneers that were arrested, prosecuted, and defamed throughout the years when shooting and distributing adult content was extremely dangerous. Guys like Phil Harvey, Larry Flynt, John Stagliano, Reuben Sturman and many others while all very different individuals paid very big prices to continue their businesses which helped weave the fabric of America.
Yes Michael I’ve seen a bit of it. “The rise of the politics of fear” in America today stands opposite of FDR’s message, “There’s nothing to fear but fear itself”. Today, through the media, the gov’t traffics in fear, just as the gov’t secretly traffics in drugs. Both enterprises are very profitable and it all comes down to money and power. The Clinton/Bush dope pilot who got killed in Mena, AK is one of the smoking guns. War is the biggest enterprise and the term “terrorism” is a nebulous and weakly defined term (it terms of the real or even official causes) which is about, not just a war or wars, which have a more finite beginning and end, but about ENDLESS war. As sure as Obama used Osama’s death hoax to raise his popularity, they soon let us know about Osama’s 2nd in command and a prediction or promise that more terror is to come. We’re the real terrorists. We’re the ones that have bombed 50 countries and counting. But in spite of that we still have to manufacture attacks against ourselves to justify expanding the Roman, I mean American Empire.