Friday, July 30th, 1999
Today's Boston Globe reports on scandal at Kenny Guarino's Metro Global Media. I've written about the corruption of this company for years. They routinely bounce checks to people, smug in their belief that through their ties with the Gambino organized crime family, they can get away with murder.
Why has the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) not come down on this corrupt organization?
Metro's East Coast headquarters in Cranston, Rhode Island, had to send a certified check to the local power company to keep their power from getting turned off. The power company would not settle for a regular check as so many of them have been bad in the past.
Metro has long been the king of not paying. Its leading employees have long had to spend much of their workday explaining to people why they were not getting paid as agreed. Why the checks had not come through yet, etc... Their favorite line is, "It'll be in the overnight tomorrow."
In the early '90s, Metro took over (through strong arm tactics) an Amsterdam porn distributor company Phantasm. It was a basic Metro operation. They bought in at a small percentage and promised further payments down the line. Then they threatened the owners (Karen Turner) till they ran.
Luke has written for years that Guarino and organized crime are still pulling the strings behind Metro and that its status as a publicly traded company is a sham. The Gambinos pull the strings at Metro and throughout much of porno, not white collar executives. At porn's trade magazine (Adult Video News) meanwhile, the industry propagandists put out crap like this from Randy Kaplan aka Rich C. Leather in its 10/94 issue:
"...no move in industry history; no television interview or personal appearance; no post-adult career of an actress or actor; no court victory; no business success or humanitarian gesture; does more to promote the social and legal acceptance of adult entertainment than the simple act of placing South Pointe [Metro Global Media] on the same legal and financial level as thousands of other public companies that provide jobs, make products and provide services to the consuming and investing public."
Here are excerpts from today's Globe's story:
Metro Global Media Inc., a very small public company in an unsavory business, moved a step up the financial food chain in May when it hired accountants from the Boston office of squeaky-clean Grant Thornton to serve as its auditors. But Grant Thornton dropped the international adult entertainment empire based in Cranston, R.I., like a hot potato just a month later.
Grant Thornton said it discovered that founder and former president Kenneth Guarino, a minority shareholder with alleged ties to organized crime and a previous pornography conviction, was actually calling the shots from the background.
In the SEC filings, Metro Global Media disputed claims that Guarino was making decisions. It said the power rested exclusively with the company's board.
''We didn't agree with what they had to say,'' said Janet Hoey, the treasurer at Metro Global Media. ''It was a huge surprise to us.''
Hoey said she was fielding our call because Metro Global Media president Dan Eberly left the job a month ago, a development that did not appear to be publicly announced. That would have been about the time Grant Thornton resigned the company's account.
Guarino, who could not be reached for comment, has gotten a lot out of his career in pornography. He bought a 9,000-square-foot Beverly Hills house for $5 million from the Sultan of Brunei earlier this year, according to the Los Angeles Times. Metro Global Media recently said that it was moving its corporate headquarters to a Los Angeles suburb.
Guarino appears on paper to have a relatively small stock holding in Metro Global Media. A limited partnership based in Bermuda, Briana Investments, owns more than 20 percent of the company, according to SEC reports.
Guarino has bobbed in and out of the picture as a public figure affiliated with Metro Global Media for years. He stepped down as president the first time in 1994, when a Wall Street Journal article drew attention to his role at the company, which was known at the time as South Pointe Enterprises. Guarino returned in December 1995 but resigned again for ''personal reasons'' in late 1996, when he was originally scheduled to plead guilty in Las Vegas to a federal conspiracy charge.
Luke F-rd: Porn's trade magazine, Adult Video News, appropriately chose Metro as its sponsor for its recently disastrous trade show at the VSDA, the AVN Expo. AVN publisher Paul Fishbein knew well about Metro's ties to organized crime but it didn't deter him from the opportunity to line his pockets.
In April, AVN hosted a "Murder Luke F-rd" trade conference which was written up in the August 19, 1999 issue of Rolling Stone thus:
"When the leaders of the top adult video and Internet companies gathered at a secretive conference in Cancun, Mexico, in the spring, Ford was a prime topic. The owner of a chain of adult stores [Edward Wedelstedt] was reportedly heard saying not only that Ford is a "menace to society" but "no one should worry about him anymore - Luke's going to end up as a spot on the pavement.""
Wedelstedt, the owner of Goalie Entertainment who's threatening to murder me, received a Special Achievement award from Fishbein and AVN at the January, 1999 AVN Awards Show. His accomplishments include burning down the buildings of his competitors, stealing Reuben Sturman's store empire and extensive dealing in stolen property with his buddies in organized crime. In his acceptance speech, Wedelstedt praised such porn luminaries as Michael Thevis, a convicted murderer, and the late Gambino crime family capo Robert DiBernardo as well as porn godfather Reuben Sturman, who dealt in child porn.
I despise Adult Video News. Fishbein and company are getting rich shilling for thugs, thieves, mafia and murderers like Kenny Guarino, Edward Wedelstedt, Steve Hirsch and company. Many of these supposedly condoms-only companies are now telling their directors and production managers to not allow performers to use condoms. Despite the FSC rhetoric, condoms kill American sales overseas.
Thus the big companies say publicly "we're for condoms," but then don't allow their use on set. Everything in this business has two faces - the public face and the true face.
Who finances these big porn companies like Private, Metro and Scala? Not Wall Street. Not decent money. The money comes from crime.
"Sometimes I wonder if I have ruined my entire f---ing life by being stained by this s---," said a porner Friday afternoon.
"Of everyone I've dealt with," says Joe, "Russ Hampshire is the most credible guy. He is the most straight up guy in a business full of s---heads. Everyone knows the AVN Awards are fixed, are bought and sold, but noone wants to admit it. All you have to do is go to the Awards Show and talk to everybody afterwards. Or look at Fishbein the next day after everyone has beaten him in the head.
"At the next AVN Awards, they should give an award for the worst hair piece. It will come down to Gene Ross or Mark Stone (Moonlight)."
A few years ago, at the AVN Awards, AVN publisher Paul Fishbein and his wife of the time from Philadelphia, Allysson, made everyone who entered the show remove their fur coats. This from Mr. Free Speech. Porner Jeannie Pepper was about to punch out Mrs. Fishbein over the issue. "Listen you f---ing bitch, this s--- keeps me warm in Germany in the winter time. If you want it off, you'll have to take it off."
Pete: "Free Speech, my ass. Porn is one of the most fascistic businesses around."
Email: "I'd have to agree with every word of that Jenna Jameson roadie... She's a nightmare... Did people come down on you when you ran that story... Jenna is a sacred cow. Her ex-boyfriend was a big cocaine dealer... He was arrested and convicted for interstate transportation of cocaine. He only served three months because he ratted out partners... I wondered how he could do tech work at Trach Tech for $250 a day and yet afford a cigarette boat, three sports cars and a $4000 a month house. Then the feds came in, handcuffed him and took him away... And he went to Arizona, Florida and a few other places where he testified... It was a big drug ring that they'd watched for two years..."
Email: "I've never understood why people hold Vivid owner Steve Hirsch in such high esteem. I guess because his checks don't bounce... But they're never for very much. He grinds you to nothing. Stevie lets his contract girls walk over everybody so he doesn't lose his personal pool of ass. He better not tell Chasey Lain to behave or he might not get his Thursday morning blow job."
Email: "Luke, I'm glad you bought a piece [gun]. If one of these f---ers messes with you, pop them. It's the only language these people understand."
Veloacr writes: "After reading Friday's post I would seriously watch yer arse... Look at who you are writing about ... JUST BE CAREFUL & watch your back. Most of us really don't want to "see you end up a spot on the pavement."
I can just see the NYT headlines: "Internet scribe Luke F-rd who wrote a daily update on the porn industry was found today in a dumpster in the East Los Angeles Area with multiple bullet wounds to the back of his head. Originally, it was thought that Mr. Ford was a victim of gang violence or of possibly being in the wrong place at the wrong time but police investigators have determined that Mr. Ford was the victim of foul play. He was shot execution style."
From www.geneross.com
While on the subject of Jail Babes, executive editor Mark Cromer offers an amusing piece in the September issue of Jail Babes, detailing how Luke F-rd tried to crash the recent Jail Babes party at the Rainbow Bar & Grill. Cromer writes:
"As dusk settled over Sunset Boulevard that night, I stepped out to the patio to work my beer, when in between the parade of gleaming cleavage, fishnets and Armanis, I noticed a familiar figure skulking behind a telephone pole across the club's driveway, dressed in a suit and holding a mini-cam behind a newspaper as if on some half-assed undercover stakeout. Ah yes, our old friend Luke F-rd, on-line porn gossip and perpetual pariah to the adult industry."
Cromer mentions that more than several people were disturbed that Ford "was within eyesight." Cromer reports that he had a chat with Ford quoting Ford as saying, 'Well, I guess I've been banned from all HUSTLER events." Cromer, in his article, says he did extend an invite, though, to his knowledge "Ford kept his distance from the soiree." Hustler runs two amusing pix catching Ford doing surveillance of the party.
Luke wonders if it was his yarmulke or his black suit that gave him away? Jail Babe Party Pics
Kid Sparkle sent Luke this doctored picture of his enemy Kid Vegas looking bruised and beat up.