United States V. Extreme Associates - Leading Up To The Indictment

Leading Up To The Indictment

The filming of Lizzy Borden's movie Forced Entry, which included several simulated rapes, was covered in the PBS Frontline documentary American Porn which aired on February 7, 2002; the makers of the documentary were repulsed and walked off the set. Zicari was interviewed in the documentary; he defended the company's content and challenged Attorney General John Ashcroft to take action against him. Zicari stated in an interview for the program, "We've got tons of stuff they technically could arrest us for. I'm not out there saying I want to be the test case. But I will be the test case. I would welcome that. I would welcome the publicity. I would welcome everything, to make a point in, I guess, our society". These scenes possibly led to the subsequent undercover operation by federal authorities.

On April 8, 2003, the premises of Extreme Associates were raided by federal agents, and five videos were seized. The United States Postal Inspection Service and the Pornography Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department's Organized Crime and Vice Division had conducted the investigation leading to the indictment. On September 5, 2002 a U.S. postal inspector had joined the Extreme website. Postal inspectors then viewed clips on the site, and ordered three videotapes which were sent to a postal agent in Pittsburgh. On August 6, 2003 Black, Borden and the company were indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on ten counts of the production and distribution by mail and the Internet of obscene pornographic materials. Zicari and Romano faced a maximum total sentence of fifty years in prison, a fine of $2,500,000, or both. Extreme Associates, Inc. faced a maximum total sentence of a term of probation of fifty years and a fine of $5,000,000. The prosecution also sought forfeiture of the films charged in the indictment, all gross profits from the distribution of the films, and all property used to facilitate the alleged crimes, including the domain name extremeassociates.com. At the time it was the first major federal obscenity prosecution in ten years.

Zicari's company is located in North Hollywood near Los Angeles. However, the indictment and trial took place in the Western District of Pennsylvania, from where undercover agents had ordered the offending materials, and video clips had been downloaded. Extreme also posted videotapes and DVDs to a distributor in the district. It has been alleged the authorities chose this area of Pennsylvania because they believed a conviction for obscenity would be easier to achieve in that socially conservative district than in California, as a jury would be more likely to agree the material offended the standards of its local community, which is part of the Miller Test used to judge obscenity in the U.S.

The trial has been seen as a test case of the acceptable limits of pornography.Mary Beth Buchanan was the federal prosecutor in the case. In an interview on 60 Minutes she said, "We have just had a proliferation of this type of material that has been getting increasingly worse and worse. And that's why it's important to enforce the law, and to show the producers that there are limits. There are limits to what they can sell and distribute throughout the country" Ms. Buchanan has also stated that "The lack of enforcement of federal obscenity laws during the 1990s has led to a proliferation of obscenity throughout the United States, such as the violent and degrading material charged in this case." Buchanan has said that Zicari's comments on the Frontline program "helped us to determine that this was not a producer who was trying to comply with the law"

Zicari remained in business during the trial; he continued to market and sell the five tapes that are at the center of the prosecution as The Federal Five, with a portion of the sales price going to his defense fund. Buyers of those materials do not break the law, since mere possession of obscenity (unlike production and distribution) is legal. The involved movies are

• Extreme Teen 24: contains a scene of a naive supposed young girl being talked into having sex by an older man. The actress involved was over 18 but was dressed and acted like a young girl.
• Cocktails 2: various scenes of women drinking vomit, saliva and other bodily fluids. It was the director's cut version of the film that was cited in the case.
• Ass Clowns 3: a female journalist is being raped by a gang led by Osama bin Laden; the journalist is freed and the gang members killed. The director's cut version also contains a scene where Jesus steps off the cross and has sex with an angel.
• 1001 Ways to Eat My Jizz:
• Forced Entry: The film depicts the beating, rape and murder of women by a serial killer, who is eventually killed by a mob of vigilantes. There are three scenes which graphically portray rape and murder, and women are also spat on. Extreme's website called it their "most controversial movie" and "a stunningly disturbing look at a serial killer, satanic rituals, and the depths of human depravity." Forced Entry was directed by Lizzy Borden and released in 2002. Again it was the director's cut version of the film that was cited in the case.

The prosecution also charged the defendants with transmitting six obscene video clips over the Internet through the extremeassociates.com website. The six video clips were entitled "valeriejospit", "jewel", "PZ Summer Breeze", "dp-gangbang-7gen-X", "miacum" and "analasspirations1", and ranged in length from 37 seconds to two minutes, 54 seconds.

The early developments in the case were covered in the 2004 TV documentary The Porn King Versus the President.