Adult Film Maker Gets Four Years in Prison
Nobody's rights were violated during the production of the "obscenity"
A Los Angeles-based creator of pornographic fetish films was sentenced to four years in federal prison Wednesday for producing and selling obscene material.
Ira Isaacs, 61, received the sentence after a six-year prosecution that included two mistrials and led to the public admonishment of federal Judge Alex Kozinski, who recused himself from the proceedings after a Times investigation found that he placed pornographic images on an Internet server that could be accessed by the public. Kozinski is the chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Doing business under the name L.A. Media, Isaacs produced, starred in, and distributed pornographic films through a website he advertised as "the Web's largest fetish VHS, DVD superstore." Some of his films, which depict bestiality and sexual situations involving human excrement, were shown to the jury during his third trial last April.
Although the defense argued that Isaacs' work was protected by the 1st Amendment, there was a general consensus about the appeal of the films, which had titles such as "Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 7."
