The Peraino family financed and produced the most profitable pornographic film of all time — Deep Throat. Louis produced the movie and his father Anthony loaned him the initial $22,500 in production costs. The Perainos used a unique procedure by leasing the theatres and employees for all proceeds. To ensure compliance, they sent their own employees or associates known as "checkers" to run the movie houses.
Anthony and Louis used profits from Deep Throat to build a vast financial empire in the 1970s that included, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), "ownership of garment companies in New York and Miami and investment companies".
The Perainos controlled various adult and porn industry interests based in New York, Los Angeles and South Florida, from adult bookstores, to peep shows and adult movie theaters. Joseph Peraino later became involved in the distribution of another very successful pornographic film, the Devil in Miss Jones, and from his base of operations in California's San Fernando Valley, Peraino would maintain a tight grip on the Colombo crime family's interests in the porn industry well into the 1990s.
Read more about this topic: Anthony Peraino