Max Hardcore’s studio, Max World Entertainment, was raided approximately 10 a.m. on Wednesday by FBI agents searching for five titles being investigated for obscenity by the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the Department of Justice.
The titles under investigation are Pure Max 16: Euro Version, Max Hardcore Fists of Fury 3, Max Hardcore Extreme Schoolgirls 6: Euro Version, Max Hardcore Golden Guzzlers 5 and Max Hardcore Golden Guzzlers 6.
Hardcore is currently in Barcelona, Spain, Max World attorney Jeffrey Douglas told AVN.com.
Douglas relayed the following statement from Hardcore:
“Once again, the government is wasting tax dollars and otherwise invaluable law enforcement resources to try to force a minority view of morality on all of America. Five movies have been targeted by the Federal Prude Patrol. There is no indication of any crime to be alleged except obscenity. If indicted, I will fight to protect my liberty, as well as the liberty of consenting adults to watch other adults engage in lawful, consensual, pleasurable sexual action. Shame on the Bush Department of Justice. I am proud of the movies I make and proud of those who buy and sell those movies.”
This is Hardcore's second obscenity charge since 2001, when he entered into a three-year-long trial brought by the city of Los Angeles over the release Max Extreme 4. That trial concluded with a plea bargain down to a "public nuisance" charge brokered in May 2004. To read our coverage of his victory in that case, click here.
This also is the third prosecution against the adult industry currently being carried out by the Bush administration. In January of this year, obscenity charges against Rob Black and wife Lizzy Borden of Extreme Associates were thrown out by a federal judge in Pittsburgh in the first federal obscenity prosecution in over a decade. U.S. Department of Justice officials are appealing the case, United States v. Extreme Associates, in the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Black and Borden were charged in August 2003 with distributing obscene videos to Pittsburgh addresses through the mail and transmitting obscene images over the Internet.
Meanwhile, Edward Wedelstedt, his wife and three other codefendants were arraigned in March before U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade of the Northern District of Texas on federal obscenity, racketeering and conspiracy charges stemming from an indictment handed down on March 11. Wedelstedt is the owner of Goalie Entertainment Holdings, Inc., which has over 100 adult retail locations in the U.S. All parties pleaded not guilty.
Max Hardcore has been a controversial trailblazer in adult since 1990, when he began cultivating the image and style that has come to be regarded by most as the founding model for hard-edged fare. He has been nominated for numerous AVN Awards, winning Best Continuing Video Series in 2001 for his Hollywood Hardcore line for Filmwest/Legend, and in 2004 was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame.
