RENO, Nev. – Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis speaks out on his legal troubles in a jailhouse interview with Greta Van Susteren that will air tonight on Fox News' "On the Record".
Francis is currently being held in a Washoe County Jail awaiting charges of tax evasion. His Fox interview has already prompted an outraged response from the religious right over remarks he made in describing his experiences in a Florida jail earlier this year.
“They would walk me – this is walking me to the shower, down the hall, and the inmates were mocking me on both sides, you know, and scream at me and – they weren't in these conditions,” Francis told Van Susteren. “And you know, I'd just be crying. I fell again, and they came and they picked me up. And it was the chaplain. He had been walking in the hallway. And he looks at me, the chaplain of the thing, and he says – he says, ‘Son, have you thought about Jesus Christ?’ And I'm crying, and I look at him and I go, ‘Every day! Because this is what they did to him.’”
The Christian propagandists at the American Family Association immediately seized upon Francis' comments, issuing a bulletin through its One News Now website with the heading: JOE FRANCIS SAYS I'M JUST LIKE JESUS CHRIST.
Francis told Fox News that Florida officials charged him with crimes he never committed during a 2003 spring break event:
“They set up a secret task force to follow us around to secretly monitor us, to secretly monitor our movements and harass us. And you know, it's still questionable whether – how much of this incident happened that was, you know, a set-up or a product of the local government…They tried to destroy me and my business only because I stood up for my First Amendment rights, and yours, and everyone else's.”
Francis responds in detail to the charges against him on his website, meetjoefrancis.com. Video evidence posted on the site recently led two Florida women to drop a federal lawsuit against Francis and his company, Mantra Films.
