OLATHE, Kan. – A Johnson County grand jury indicted Gringo Loco Wednesday on a misdemeanor charge of selling one "obscene" DVD. The store is the fourth business in Johnson County to be indicted since the jury convened on July 16.
According to the Associated Press, the three businesses previously indicted will have an Oct. 10 hearing, and attorneys for the companies have vowed to fight the charges. A hearing for Gringo Loco has not yet been set.
The rare grand juries were called as a result of anti-porn crusader Philip Cosby's campaign to wipe out adult businesses in the Kansas City area. Cosby heads the Kansas City chapter of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families (NCPCF). Earlier this year, he organized a petition drive calling for grand jury investigations of 32 adult businesses in Kansas and Missouri for promotion of obscenity. Enlisting the help of church leaders and community activists, Cosby's group delivered the petitions to six county courthouses in May. The efforts successfully created grand juries in several Kansas counties.
Grand juries at the county or district court level are rare in Kansas, and state law doesn’t limit the types of cases that they can investigate. Kansas law allows for a grand jury to be called if citizens gather a required number of signatures from registered voters.
The Johnson County grand jury is the county's first since 1989 and is expected to sit for three months. Nearby Wyandotte County also has formed a grand jury to look into obscenity cases.
