Last week Florida Attorney David Wasserman wrote on this site: "On Monday, May 22, 2000 CBS's news show 48 Hours is doing a story on our Polk County internet obscenity case, the first in the nation. They have dedicated 2 out of 3 segments of the show to the never ending case. It was settled once with us dropping the federal lawsuit against the officer involved in exchange for dismissal of the criminal charges and forfeiture until the prosecutor heard our client on the radio criticizing them. We have now also sued the prosecutor for punishing our client for engaging in protected political speech. It should be interesting. nnIn a follow-up interview, Wasserman explained the case. nnWasserman: "This is the first case of obscenity on the Internet. The people were taking pictures of themselves in their home, like thousands of other people who are doing. The police allege that the husband was taking the pictures. One of the police officers was really offended because on one of the pictures the husband appeared wearing a Bill Clinton mask and the wife was dressed up like Monica Lewinsky. He thought that was desecrating the president of the United States. nn"[Later] This lady - Tammy Lawson [Robinson] aka Becka Lynn - had called them and said she got a death threat in her chat room. She called the county sheriff's department for help. A computer crimes guy calls her and says he'll come out and see her. Three weeks later, after the death, threat he finally shows up for the report. She shows him the chat room and that she's running an adult site. She said I'm not doing anything wrong am I? Please tell me. I'll take it down. He said no it's fine I'm investigating a death threat. He comes back a month later with a search warrant. He opens the door and she's naked. She says please let me put some clothes on. They force their way in. She said what are you doing here? He says I'm here to arrest you. She said you told me it was legal. He said I lied to you because I was acting in an undercover capacity. It was crazy. They arrested her. Finally, they let her put clothes on, but, according to our client, she's been paraded around nude in front of these officers. Then, it turns out that the officer they called for transport is a member of her site. Even 48 Hours doesn't know that. We just found that out in depositions. nn"Once the computer crimes guy found out that the guy who was going to transport her was a member of the site [beckalynn.com], they sent him away. He was subsequently fired. We're trying to locate him. It's a great story. And there are other officers who are members of the site. nn"When the police raided her house they seized her clothing the theory was that some of the clothes appeared on the site's pictures, so they took the clothes. They took her computer equipment and her kid's computer equipment so they couldn't do homework for school. They took her family videos and every video they could find. [Attorney] Bob Sarno called me and said these people have a problem, can I help them. We agreed to defend them. They didn't have the money, but we filed the federal lawsuit trying to make the sheriff's department pay for it. We're defending them in criminal court and we have a federal lawsuit. We filed a second federal lawsuit against the prosecutor - there's a line of cases that say if you punish someone in retaliation for political speech, that's a federal violation. So we filed a federal lawsuit against the prosecutor for that as well. nn"The best part is this. We came up with the first legal defense fund on her site. The federal lawsuit was paid for by her fans. We had bumper stickers made - 'You're now entering Polk County, please surrender your vibrator.' They took her vibrators, too. The case has been ongoing since." nnG. Ross: "You guys in Florida always have some great bullshit cases going on." nnWasserman: "This is a Boss Hawg sheriff and the judges are the sheriff's huntin' buddies. So that's the problem we have. Then in the middle district of Florida where I am, the federal judges are extremely conservative, too. They're mostly Reagan appointees. The sheriff knows the possibility of getting relief from them, even federally, is slim to none, so they do whatever they want. Somewhere along the lines we're going to have a victory. They wanted to dismiss it once and see that we're not so ready to dismiss it. I think somewhere along the line there will be a settlement, but the only way we'll do that is dismissal of all criminal charges. They want to plead to a slap on the wrist. We say she didn't do anything wrong and refuse that. She's been good and strong and willing to do that. nnWasserman gives the background of how 48 Hours got involved. nnWasserman: It's sweeps weeks and 48 Hours, hearing about the Polk County case contacted us sometime ago. They met with us and said they wanted to do a whole hour on sex and wanted to do a feature that would feature my law firm prominently. We did the case. They came and spent a day interviewing us then went to Arizona to interview our client. Then they interviewed the prosecutor. They were actually in my office filming when the prosecutor called saying he would dismiss the charges if we would dismiss the federal lawsuit against the police officer. They also had a forfeiture case against the lady trying to retain all her property and they had agreed to dismiss that anyway. They did dismiss that. Then the prosecutor called my ofice when I was out of town and said to my secretary I heard your client on the radio. She's out of hand, out of control. I need you to deal with it. They called the client. The client said it was an interview from the beginning of the arrest months and months ago, that they're just replaying. The prosecutor called back and said she's bad-mouting them on the radio and the deal is off. We said you already made the deal, you can't renege on the deal. You already dismissed the forfeiture case. I said this is crazy so we filed a motion in state court asking that the case be dismissed for prosecutorial conduct. The prosecutor previously told me that he was going to talk to the judge ex parte about a matter. I said it was unethical. You can't do that. If you're going to do that, you need to allow me to be in attendance or attend by telephone. He said, right. nnI went to the hearing on the motion to dismiss for prosecutorial misconduct. I went down there to argue it that day not realizing the prosecutor had a stroke. Here I was giving him a hard time and telling the judge my client should be dismissed. They filmed the court room that day."
All models were at least 18 years old at the time of their performance. 18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement.
