Monday, August 2nd, 1999
I talked Monday afternoon with Los Angeles Police Department detective Feldtz. He left a message for me Friday afternoon about the July 9, 1999 incident where porn journalist Marc Star assaulted me at the AVN Expo.
Detective Feldtz would like to hear from anyone with information about the assault - 213-485-2671, Fax 213-847-2956. The reference number for the incident is 9901-168-02, and the log number is 12-7-33.
The LAPD's preliminary investigation was written up this way: "Susp and Vict became involved in an argument. Susp struck Vict with his closed R-Fist on Vict's abdominal area."
Hustler Erotic Video Guide editor Mike Albo writes www.geneross.com: "Gene, Read with interest that Jef Hickey attending the debut of Rob Black's wrestling venture. Once again, this little bitch-a guy who actually CRIES in the mistaken belief that people will pity him-is out on the town and not repaying his debts. While it's no secret that I have promised to break Luke F-rd's nose when I finally see him, I'm going to add Jef to my "hit list.""
In his column for www.adultstarsmagazine.com, Mike South wrote up the Marc Star - Luke F-rd incident this way: "Quickly now, who is the most despised person in porn? If you said Luke F-rd, you are correct, but while everyone says they hate him they also read his site, religiously. Seems Luke recently uncovered some dirt on Darren Star. Star is the director of HBO’s hot new series "Sex in the City". It seems Star is directly linked to a dead 19 year old girl in a hotel room, autopsy reports revealed illegal substances in her system. What Luke didn’t know is that Star has a brother in the porn biz, Mark Star is editor of an industry review magazine and he confronted Luke in front of the Adult Stars Magazine booth at the recent VSDA show in Los Angeles. Star then proceeded to sucker punch Luke, security was summoned, police were called and Star was ejected, Luke did not choose to press charges."
A website covering the porn industry for three years has started piling on the content. Check out Adult Stars Magazine which features columns from Jill Kelly, Peter North, Dave Cummings, Harris from Paris and this essay "A Low Blow at AVN Expo."
I particularly enjoyed Al Hanan's farewell column, a satirical piece "Inside the Porno Star's Mouth," which was inspired by Chloe's remark to me at the Jill Kelly gangbang in early June. Dressed in a black suit, I took her by surprise. "You look like my dentist," Chloe said to me.
FSC Ineptitude
The porn industry trade group, the Free Speech Coalition, has talked for years about developing a national lobbyist in Washington D.C. But they've never gotten off their fat butts to do it. Do you know how much it costs to become a lobbyist in Washington D.C.? Thirty three cents. And last week Mike Ross did just that. Perhaps the FSC should hire Mike as its executive director.
I hear that Jeffrey Douglas, outgoing FSC executive director, and Gloria Leonard, outgoing FSC president, are furious that Ross has embarrassed them again. Here's looking at you, kids.
Mike Ross writes: (Washington D. C.) - On Friday morning, a friend of mine, Phillip Hitchcock, and I did something I dreamed about doing for years - Registering as a national lobbyist and getting official Congressional recognition for the NCA as a national Political Action Committee (we also met with Congressman Kleczk regarding H 1525 - IC legislation).
The registration process is required by the 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act, and is quite simple, effective and takes place in both the House and Senate. Usually the process takes no longer than 5 minutes per house (the offices are over 20 minutes apart), and its' best appreciated when done in person. The registration events took place amid the East's sweltering heat wave.
After entering the building, meeting up with Phillip, and finding the first office, we walked in and handed the Senate Clerk the papers. Apparently we " turned up the heat" inside his office as I watched him raise his eyebrow (like Mr. Spock) smile slyly, and shake his head. Additionally, the House Clerk asked under his breath ...... "Is this for real?"
"With a smile, handshake and a "gentlemen's laugh," we received stamped copies of the documents and walked out the door giving each other "hi-fives" because we made "history". And we're sure we made both of the clerk's day(s). What does this mean to the Cabaret industry? Simple, in the eyes of the United State's Congress and US Senate, WE ARE LEGITIMATE!!! What does this "legitimacy" bring us? Although we could do it before, we now can "officially lobby members of Congress and the Senate, testify before committees and raise money to make campaign donations" just like other high profile companies and industries do." This makes us "players" in upcoming campaigns. According to the Senate, there are only 3,500 Federally registered Political Action Committees. There has been lots of talk about registering over the last few years, but no one ever stepped forward and actually did it. At the same time, the Adult Entertainment Industry Education Fund also registered with Congress and was recognized by them as a legitimate lobbying group.
Vivid Fahringer Gambino Cambria
Luke has Steve Hirsch ducking and diving again. Vivid Video lawyer Paul Cambria, a partner in the law firm of Mafia consigliere Herald Price Fahringer, writes Luke this misspelled and badly punctuated letter (didn't these clowns ever take an English class?):
"I have spent a large portion of my legal carrier defending the right of people to express themselves as provided for by the First Amendment .The right of free expression carries with it a responsibility to be truthful.You seem to want to exercise your right but you appear to have no regard for truth or accuracy.
"Let me give you some examples beyond those I pointed out for you in my previous letters on behalf of my client Vivid Video.You have decided to bash my partner Herald Fahringer and ascribe to him my letter to you regarding our belief that you have legally defamed several people and their companies. I immediately E-mailed you and told you that Herald has nothing to do with my letters to you. I represent Vivid Video I don't even believe Hearld has ever met Steve Hirsch.I am not Heralds underling we are partners and indeed Herald has never even been to our Beverly Hills office and you therefore have no basis to make these claims .What you do by constantly ignoring the facts is to show a pattern of malicious and wanton disregard for the facts and the truth. It is this malicious and repeated untruthfulness that the First Amendment does not protect.
"I am taking the time to write this to you not because I believe you will see the light and mend your ways and respect the power and dignity of the First Amendment or to remind you that Those who use its great gifts should do responsibly. I simply want to memorialize in writing that you have been clearly advised of the true facts concerning my partners total non-involvement in my letters to you on behalf of my client Vivid Video so that you can never claim a good faith basis for claiming otherwise.
"I want to remove any basis for you to claim that you were not clearly informed that Herald has no involvement in this matter whatsoever."
AVN's Murder Incorporated
Metro Mafia Scandal
On Friday, Luke blasted porn's trade magazine Adult Video News (AVN) for ignoring Metro Home Video's links with organized crime. Readers of l-keford.com know Metro better as Mafia Home Video.
AVN never reported on Metro's January 1997 conviction for dealing with the Gambino crime family of New York. Instead, AVN proudly chose Mafia Home Video to sponsor its AVN Expo at last month's VSDA show at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Friday'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, recently 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.
At porn's trade magazine (Adult Video News) meanwhile, the industry propagandists put out crap like this from Randy Kaplan aka Rich C. Leather aka Jack Point 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."
Another example of AVN's low moral standards is that the magazine hosted an insiders conference this spring where convicted thug Edward Wedelstedt made murderous threats against me. I quote from the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine (August 19, 1999):
"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.
Randy Kaplan addresses Luke F-rd on today's www.geneross.com: "Dear Luke: I appreciate your resurrecting the quotation from my AVN story about Metro going public from nearly five years ago. The paragraph you quoted remains my personal favorite quotation from all my years in porn journalism, and I am still proud of the prose and the sentiment. If Metro had fulfilled its promise, it would be all the more true. Public companies have to adhere to certain legal standards of disclosure, and publicly-owned adult companies can be a factor in public acceptance of adult entertainment, so I continue to think that this is a good thing.
"That is the argument in the abstract, however, and I think everyone would agree that both individual and corporate citizens should also adhere to certain standards of conduct as well, and if they do not, it doesn't reflect well on the industry from which they spring, nor does it help public acceptance of the industry. This is painfully obvious. What is not so painfully obvious is whether you or anyone else has credible evidence of some of the allegations you make about corrupt or criminal activity.
"If memory serves correctly, Grant Thornton is now the third CPA firm to resign the Metro assignment. I have not read the Globe article, but if you are quoting the article and the Grant Thornton spokesman accurately, Kenny Guarino's ostensible presence in decision-making is a matter of concern. As we all know, Mr. Guarino cannot serve as a board member of a publicly-owned company, due to his felony conviction. In turn, a publicly-owned company cannot allow him to serve in a similar behind-the-scenes role without the official title, and they cannot allow him to take a role in senior management, officially or unofficially, without prior and concurrent disclosures, and at great risk to the company's legal status.
"My major personal objection to your use of my prose, Luke, is that it ignores a very simple fact: nearly every public statement I made since, including frequent statements printed in AVN, make it very clear that I regarded Metro's performance as a public company as dismal in the extreme, judging it simply on business and financial standards. I reported virtually every quarter on Metro's financial reports, usually in scathing terms.
"Literally hundreds of people can attest to my making the following statement on hundreds of occasions: "Metro is the worst-managed company in porn." By the way, there are now so many competitors for this title that my statement may no longer be true. I also believe, and I have also stated so publicly and privately, that Metro has improved its business performance somewhat over the last year to eighteen months. But the fact of the matter is that, according to its financial reports, Metro has earned a mere pittance in porn.
"Metro did make a risky move into mainstream magazines that so far has apparently earned a decent return, but that does not mask their relative failure, business-wise, in porn. I have also recently stated, both publicly and privately, that although I had a strong initial negative reaction to replacing Marco DiMercurio with Greg Alves as head of Metro's West Coast operations, that I have been pleasantly surprised by Alves's performance. (For that matter, I also was critical of Steve Karmelin's departure, way back when.) I think Alves probably deserves some of the credit for what I characterized above as a modest improvement in Metro's performance, as does Quasarman. But Metro still isn't making any significant profits making porn.
"On any number of occasions, I attributed part of Metro's underperformance to instability in management. If Grant Thornton's statements are true, Mr. Guarino's influence can be cited as one of the primary reasons for such instability. Some of my sources implied as much over the years I covered Metro. "Inquiries were made on two previous occasions by SEC and NASDAQ officials. To my knowledge, that was as far as it went. That is why I never pursued it as a story; in any event, my brief in covering the quarterly and annual reports of public companies in the adult business was to interpret the numbers, which don't lie.
"If I had uncovered solid evidence of undue influence, I would have pursued the story, written it, and I personally believe that Paul Fishbein would have printed it in a second, because I remember him telling me that he was proud to print the paragraph you quoted. I believe that if Metro loses its status as a public company, that it would be harmful to the business, and I believe that such a happenstance would be more important to Paul Fishbein than any personal or financial relationships he might have with any individual or company. I saw him risk such relationships constantly for similar reasons of integrity.
"I regard Metro's performance as a failure in management. I said so on any number of occasions, and I said it to stock analysts, who regularly contacted me for my professional opinion. I have no knowledge of corruption or illegal acts. If you do, Luke, you have a citizen's duty to notify the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Boston Globe or the Wall Street Journal or the Providence or Cranston newspapers would be happy to print such a story. If you want my opinion, you should call or email me and ask me. It's a little sloppy to imply that a five-year old statement represents the state of my current opinion (or, for that matter, AVN's current opinion, of which I have no knowledge, since I have no connection any longer with the magazine), especially when subsequent information is easily available.
"One last nitpick: while I am indeed known in print to much of the porn world under my nom de plume of Rich C. Leather, I wrote my business articles, and appeared on the AVN masthead as Business Editor, under the nom de plume of Jack Point. I developed these noms de plume when I began to write for AVN, because my office duties at the magazine required uncluttered business relationships with porn companies who were clients and advertisers as well as subjects about which to write, and I did not wish anything I wrote to interfere with the care and feeding of those relationships, which, after all, was what AVN paid me a salary to do. Once I left the direct employ of AVN and continued as a freelance writer, I kept the noms de plume as a matter of continuity, and also because they amused me; however, I immediately disclosed what I had previously kept secret; i.e. that I was Rich C. Leather and Jack Point. Just about everyone in this business knows me as Randy, not as Rich or Jack. Any correspondence I have made to you or to Gene Ross's website has been under my real name. The article you quoted was written under the name of Jack Point."
Luke strained his back Monday morning, digging through his pile of old Adult Video News magazines (generously given to Luke by AVN's gentleman publisher Paul Fishbein) until he found the October, 1994 issue in question.
I reread Randy Kaplan's article which includes this: "The adult industry has reached the good gray pages in a laudatory front-page feature in the Wall Street Journal (July 11, 1994) detailing the process of converting South Pointe Enterprises, Inc, the corporate parent of Metro Home Video and their distribution arm North Star, into the first publicly-traded adult entertainment company."
Luke has also gone to the trouble of digging up that Wall Street Journal article in question which is not nearly as laudatory as Kaplan claims. In fact, the article extensively details Metro's links with the Mafia, something Kaplan fails to mention in his article. Kaplan's article is largely a rewrite of the WSJ piece, but with the negative bits excised.
So here are some quotes from that Wall Street Journal article that AVN has failed to ever mention:
But even as he plots the future, Mr. Guarino is dogged by his past. He is facing federal charges in Las Vegas of conspiring to bribe a union official in 1991, in a case linking him to Natale "Big Chris" Richichi, who the government alleges is a capo in the Gambino crime family.
But Mr. Guarino's hopes for a cleaner image for South Pointe could be spoiled by the conspiracy charge against him.
Wiretap records in the case indicate that Mr. Guarino asked Mr. Richichi to help him out of a financial bind when a Las Vegas musical in which he had invested, called "Nightdreams," bombed. Mr. Richichi, who lived in Las Vegas, phoned a man he thought was the stagehand union's president and tried to bribe him to get out of payroll obligations, the government claims. The man turned out to be an undercover federal agent.
Mr. Richichi, who is 77 and appeared at an arraignment last year tethered to an oxygen bottle, denied the charges, as did Mr. Guarino. Mr. Guarino says that he did nothing wrong and that Mr. Richichi has no involvement in South Pointe. Federal investigators maintain that the two have had frequent contacts in the past.
In court documents, prosecutors also allege Mr. Guarino made cash "tribute" payments of as much as $15,000 a month to Mr. Richichi. It isn't clear whether the alleged payments were voluntary.
This isn't the first time Mr. Guarino has tangled with the law. He has been charged repeatedly with selling and transporting obscene material, and in 1984 he was indicted for income-tax evasion. But all of those cases were dismissed or overturned on appeal.
Mr. Guarino knows that his business offends some people and that his films are considered obscene in parts of the country under the Supreme Court's "community standards" test, which takes into account prevailing local attitudes. "Adults have a right to see them if they want to," he says. "If it offends you, don't buy it."
Mr. Guarino says the actors in the films he produces are consenting adults and there is no violence. And the flicks, which his company churns out at a rate of about one a month, now feature less-kinky sexual content -- not for fear of prosecution, but because softer fare is acceptable to a much broader market. All his films are now shot in hard-core and soft-core versions; the latter sell quickly in the pay-per-view market.
Graff Pay Per View Inc., the publicly traded New York operator of Spice adult pay-per-view network, is one buyer. Spice now rings up more than 800,000 sales a month among its 8.3 million subscribers, about double the buy-rate most pay-per-view services get. "This thing is a freight train," say Steven Saril, Graff's vice president of marketing. Graff just launched a second pay-per-view cable service, and buys 22 new adult films a month from South Pointe and other suppliers to feed its programming needs.
"Over the last few years the taboos have broken down, in part because cable operators can offer parental lockout," which prevents children from watching adult fare, says Stephen Astor, a marketing vice president with Playboy Enterprises Inc., which has bought some softcore South Pointe films for the Playboy Channel.
After operating for more than 20 years through a thicket of corporate entities, Mr. Guarino has had some difficulty with all the disclosure required of a public company. Eric Barr of Trien, Rosenberg in Morristown, N.J., South Pointe's auditor, says his team "spends a lot of time on affiliated transactions to make sure they are at arm's length." Another element that complicates the company's finances is that instead of having an initial public offering of stock, South Pointe went public by buying an inactive corporate shell.
The decision to go public was made in part "to become more acceptable. I'd say more `legitimate,' but I've always been legitimate," Mr. Guarino says. "If I had any skeletons in the closet, I sure as hell wouldn't have gone public."
Still, he won't describe his relationship to Mr. Richichi, citing the pending litigation. "The Las Vegas situation has nothing to do with South Pointe," he says, repeating that Mr. Richichi "has no connection with the company."
According to government testimony presented at a hearing on the bribery charges last year, Mr. Guarino advised his aging friend Mr. Richichi on ways to avoid legal prosecution. In a Jan. 6, 1992, phone conversation taped by federal agents, recounted by a federal prosecutor at the hearing, Mr. Richichi complains bitterly about being dogged by the government.
"Any little thing, they make racketeering," he says on tape. "It's getting worse and worse . . . . I don't know what the hell I'm going to do." Mr. Guarino proceeds to discuss Mr. Richichi's plans to relocate to the Dominican Republic and asks whether Mr. Richichi can avoid extradition by paying public officials there, according to the testimony.
Whatever Mr. Guarino's relationship with Mr. Richichi, prosecutors say organized-crime influence in the adult business has weakened as new players enter the industry and the market itself grows.
Michael Warner, president of Great Western Litho, a Van Nuys, Calif., printer serving the industry for 25 years, agrees. "The VCR changed everything," he says. "It's a much larger, more open business." Great Western prints adult-video boxes, "and we're running 24 hours a day five days a week, printing 2.2 million to 2.5 million a month, double what we did just three years ago."
Also, Adult Video News has never mentioned the 1998 book "The Animal in Hollywood: Anthony Fiato's Life in the Mafia" which details the organized crime links of several pornographers including VCA owner Russ Hampshire. I tipped off several leading figures at AVN to this book in late 1998 and I know that at least one guy on the editorial side at AVN has read the book. But he's never written about it for fearing of alientating Russ.
Partly because of the heat he's taking on l-keford.com, Hampshire's looking to leave porno. He resigned from the Free Speech Coalition, porn's trade group, several months ago.
I quote from page 134 of Animal (Hampshire denies the story):
"After I [Fiato] bailed out Harvey Ross [aka Harvey Rosenthal, long time employee of Russ Hampshire who died of cancer in 1994, thief, assisted in the 1982 murder of actor Frank Christi with pornographers and dupers Alan Betts and Ronald Coe who are associates of Robert Zeichick aka Puggy, criminal, thief, pornographer], he started coming to the club regularly and told me all about the pornographers he knew. Now Harvey's acting like one of my crew… He tells me he's working for a place called the American Video Library for Russ Hampshire, who Harvey says wants to have somebody killed. Russ realized who I [LA mafia enforcer Anthony Fiato] was and knew me by reputation, and he's also good friends with Michael Esposito. Russ knew that Harvey [Rosenthal] was friendly with me, and he [Russ Hampshire] brought up this deal to Harvey that his partner, Walter [Gernert], was throwing away the business by doing so much cocaine. Harvey came back and told me that Russ had told him he wanted to have his partner [Walter Gernert] killed.
"So I send Harvey to Radio Shack for a seventy-eight-dollar pocket recorder and arrange a meeting with Russ. I told Harvey, 'Get him [Hampshire] alone again and get him to repeat what he'd said. Harvey goes to the meeting, follows him into the men's room, and asks him if he was really sure he wanted to go through with this. Harvey gets him to say he wants his motherf---ing partner dead and is willing to pay Anthony fifty-thousand to do the job. Half up front and half when it's done. We take the half up front.
"After Harvey met with him, we made another meet, this time at the Tail O' Pop on La Cienega [Blvd]. Harvey, Puggy, John Di Mittia and I were at the meeting. When Russ walked in I could see the fear on his face. He only expected to be meeting me [Fiato] and Harvey [Rosenthal]. Russ was carrying a briefcase and sat down. He appeared to know everybody at the table. I told Harvey to take out the tape and play it for him.
"Russ's eyes almost popped out of his head like a frog. I gave him the tape. I said, 'Here, you're lucky this came to my attention because this motherf---er Harvey was going to blackmail you.' He was so happy, he slid the briefcase over in the booth and handed over twenty-five thousand cash, just like that. We're not going to kill anybody for this guy. And we don't have to. He can't go to the cops. He can't do anything. It was sweet.
"When he [Hampshire] left, we just laughed. I'd had Harvey make six copies of that f---ing tape. Russ kept paying for two years until finally after the fifth or sixth time he turned his pockets inside out and said, 'All I've got left is lint. Tell Walter, tell the cops. Tell anybody you want. I don't care what you do.' "At that point we'd taken thousands from the guy and we didn't need to hurt anyone."
Veloacr writes: "Hey LUKE - just to prove your point about how AVN & Fishbein "BUYS" everything here is another example of the GOOD OL BOYS network sticking together: I was flipping channels over this weekend and managed to pass by SPICE. As we all know 99.4% of the "product" on spice is VIVID video CRAP/JUNK. Well, there was this porn chick (really didn't bother to take notice of who it was) and she was rubbing herself & starting to masturbate while reading a copy of none other than AVN. When she was "caught" by another chick, she "confessed" the pictures of other women "turned her on" COME ON GIVE ME A BREAK - AVN?? PHLUEEZE!!! Can you say "buying votes" for upcomming awards shows? Just goes to show you how far backscratching or should we say Blowjobbing? goes between Fishbein & Hirsch!"
Luke's favorite pundit, George Will, writes in the Washington Post July 29: "In the 1995-96 election cycle, Americans spent $675 million on presidential politics; in 1997 they spent $8 billion on pornography. But then, in the past quarter-century pornography has been deregulated, whereas spending on political expression has been enveloped in regulations."