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His company, General Video of America, was started by Reuben Sturman, and the GVA franchise has been the dominant porn distributor since the 1970s. Reuben's son David owns GVA West. Mel's brother Joel runs David's magazine division Profit Pak. To not step on the toes of other GVAs, Kamins' GVA Cleveland restricts its sales to western Pennsylvania to Indianapolis. Mel's eldest child, Rondee, will head up GVA's internet operations. "I think the biggest problem here is, we have a lot of people who have been around who are my dad's age, and they've always done business in a certain way," she tells the 01/00 AVN. "The net awareness level here is low. SOme of the younger people...are more adaptive to what we're trying to do with the Internet, but the 40-, 50-, 60-year olds have a real hard time understanding what we're doing at all." Mel says that the internet is already hurting adult stores and it is going to hurt them far more in the next few years as more people get their porn over the net. Cleveland Plains Dealer 12/3/93 A federal grand jury in Chicago has indicted porn czar Reuben Sturman on extortion charges for allegedly using violence to encourage adult-bookstore owners to continue paying him money. The charges in the 10-count indictment carry a maximum sentence of life in prison because one of five people hired to bomb several Chicago adult bookstores was killed when a bomb accidentally exploded in his lap in April. The extortion and conspiracy charges say Sturman directed a Los Angeles man to hire people to damage and destroy peep-show booths at adult bookstores in Cleveland, Chicago and Phoenix, Ariz., because owners of the stores had stopped paying him. The indictment said Mel Kamins of Cleveland stopped paying Sturman 45% of his gross revenues from peep-show booths in 1990. Instead, Kamins paid the money to the Internal Revenue Service, which was trying to collect a $4.6 million tax assessment against Sturman. Kamins, a former employee of Sturman, had bought 18 companies that operated adult bookstores from Sturman in 1988, according to the indictment. Kevin Beechum, Russell Hampshire's Role In Reuben Sturman Bombing Affair ARGUED JANUARY 4, 1995--DECIDED MARCH 14, 1995 Before BAUER, and MANION, Circuit Judges, and MILLER, District Judge. Reuben Sturman was convicted of conspiracy to commit extortion, attempted extortion, and travel in interstate commerce for the purposes of com- mitting extortion. 18 U.S.C. secs. 1951, 1952. He contends on appeal that the trial court proceeding was fraught with error and asks, on that basis, that we reverse his con- viction or at least vacate portions of his sentence. We find his arguments unpersuasive, and so we affirm. I. From his home state of California, Reuben Sturman operated a nationwide wholesale and retail adult entertainment business for over thirty years. His power and influence was such that many in the industry believed that he was the industry. Sturman had substantial control over distribution of adult videos and magazines and marital aids. A significant portion of his income came from small operators located throughout the United States, who paid Sturman for supplies or services in organizing and run- ning local enterprises. Sturman's fiery relationship with operators in Phoenix, Cleveland, and Chicago led to the prosecution of this case. Tamara Green took over the ownership and operation of the Book Cellar, a chain of several adult book stores in Phoenix, Arizona, after her husband, Howard, the store's previous owner, passed away in 1990. The Book Cellar leased peep show video equipment from Sturman. Soon after taking over the business, Green learned that, for several months, her husband had been paying Sturman twice the amount called for in the lease agreement. Green instructed her accountant to suspend all payments until October of 1991 when the accumulated credit would be exhausted and at which point they could resume payment at the contract rate. Sturman was not particularly pleased with Green's decision. On several occasions in the fall of 1991, Sturman told Green's accountant and general manager that unless Green paid him the additional money, he would "send her a message." In November of 1991, Herbert Feinberg, an employee of Sturman's, asked Kevin Beechum to hire some people "to smash a bookstore in Phoenix, Arizona." Beechum hired Jay Brisette, Donald Mares, and Paul Mahn and instructed them to vandalize one of Green's stores because she wasn't paying the money which she owed. On December 21, 1991, Brisette, Mares, and Mahn entered Green's store with hammers and baseball bats and proceeded to cause approximately $10,000 in property dam- age. Convinced that this was Sturman's "message," Green resumed paying Sturman at a monthly rate twice that of the agreement. Sturman's secretary testified that when she asked Sturman why Green had resumed paying the higher rate, he replied, "I sent her a message and she understood." Mel Kamins had been associated with Sturman since 1955. In 1986, Kamins purchased several Cleveland adult entertainment businesses from Sturman. His agreement with Sturman required Kamins to make monthly payments ranging between $60,000 and $90,000 for ten years to Sturman or Sturman's nominees. In the meantime, the IRS had discovered that Sturman was significantly delinquent on his prior tax obligations. Consequently, the IRS served upon Kamins and others owing obligations to Sturman, tax levies directing those persons to pay directly to the IRS any money owed to Sturman. After Kamins began complying with the levy, Sturman contacted Kamins in an effort to persuade him to ignore the levy and continue the payments. Alternatively, Sturman urged Kamins to skim his profits and pay Sturman in cash. Kamins refused. Sturman proceeded to hire a man named James Long to investigate the level of security at Kamins's stores. Long had performed security-oriented work for Sturman in the past. Sturman told Long that Kamins had not been paying Sturman what he owed. Later that month (February 1992), Sturman and Long visited Kamins's store. When Kamins again insisted on honoring the IRS levy, Sturman wrote Kamins a note which read, "You are going to get a message." Though nothing ever was done to Kamins or his business, Feinberg did discuss with Kevin Beechum the possibility of hiring Beechum's men to do a few more jobs in Cleveland. It appears as if the only thing that saved Kamins from a fate similar to that of Green were the developments taking place in Chicago. Roy May and his wife, Paula, owned and operated several adult entertainment businesses in Chicago. They had an arrangement with Sturman that entitled Sturman to a certain percentage of the profits received from their peep show receipts. Under this arrangement, the Mays typically delivered to one of Sturman's nominees a cash payment ranging from $60,000 to $100,000 every four to six weeks. This portion of the Mays' revenues was never reported to the IRS. Sturman frequently demanded that in addition to the payments, the Mays give him title to half of their real estate holdings, the purchase of which Sturman had absolutely nothing to do with. Understandably, the Mays refused these demands. In 1987, Paula May was indicted for tax evasion. Subsequently, Roy May ceased making the payments to Sturman. Sturman then suggested that May pay Sturman the money through a consulting arrangement. Although he received no benefit from this arrangement, May consented to the deal for fear that if he did not, Sturman would ruin him financially. During the term of the consulting contract, May resumed his profit-skimming cash payments to Sturman, albeit at a lower rate. In 1988, Roy May refused to renew the consulting con- tract. Again, however, his fear of what Sturman might do to him and his business caused him to agree to pay Sturman $3.7 million for the rights to show adult films produced by Sturman's new company, Wild Man Films Inc., despite knowing that these films were worth no more than $200,000. May never used these films. When the IRS began sending tax levies to Sturman's various debtors, Sturman suggested that he and May cancel their Wild Man Films contract so that May would have nothing to pay to the IRS. They did so but soon thereafter, Sturman began pressuring May to resume paying him. Sturman asked May to start making payments to a company named Video Views, which Sturman insisted could not be traced to Sturman. Reluctant to violate the IRS levy, May refused. In the spring of 1992, Feinberg once again hired Brisette and his men, this time for a job in Chicago. After the financial arrangements were completed, Brisette and three others, Donald Mares, Paul Mahn, and Joseph Martinez, flew to Chicago. They intended to plant several remote- controlled bombs at eight of May's Chicago stores. After successfully planting a bomb at the first site, Mares and Mahn were travelling to a store on Wells Street when one of their bombs detonated in their car at the intersection of Dearborn and Division streets. Mahn fled the scene. Mares died as a result of injuries sustained in the explosion. After hearing about the explosion, Brisette and Martinez aborted their efforts and together with Mahn, returned to Los Angeles. From there, the plan continued to unravel. Still panicked from what had happened in Chicago, Brisette began to cooperate with the FBI. As part of his co- operation, Brisette participated in a tape-recorded conversation with Feinberg. The FBI then approached Feinberg and asked him to cooperate in a case against Sturman. Feinberg refused and then went to meet with Russell Hampshire, another figure in the California adult entertainment industry and a friend of Sturman's. In his conversation with Hampshire, Feinberg stated that he had been hired by Sturman to damage some stores in Chicago and that one of the people involved was killed. Feinberg asked Hampshire to assure Sturman that Feinberg would not cooperate with the police as long as Sturman helped him with his legal fees. When Hampshire passed on Feinberg's message, Sturman told Hampshire that he would take care of Feinberg's legal fees. A few months later, Sturman transferred $25,000 from his account to an account held by Feinberg's attorney. Sturman and Feinberg were indicted together but tried separately. Sturman was convicted on Counts One, Seven, and Eight of a ten-count indictment. Count One charged Sturman and Feinberg with conspiring to commit extortion with respect to Green, Kamins, and the Mays. 18 U.S.C. sec. 1951. Count Seven charged Sturman and Feinberg with an attempt to commit extortion in connection with their threats to the Mays between November of 1991 and November 1992. Id. Count Eight charged Sturman and Feinberg with causing persons to travel in interstate commerce for the purpose of promoting extortion. 18 U.S.C. sec. 1952. Sturman was acquitted of the remaining charges. The court sentenced Sturman to 235 months in prison and imposed a two-year term of supervised release. Sturman appeals his conviction and his sentence.
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