TAMPA - U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew today denied adult producer/director Max Hardcore's request to delay his prison sentence while his attorneys appeal his conviction on obscenity charges.
Attorneys for Max, a.k.a. Paul Little, filed a motion last week in which they argued that their pending appeal of the case was strong enough to provide legal grounds for postponing the sentence.
"A defendant cannot gain relief... by merely showing that a court of appeals may choose to overturn a defendant’s conviction," Judge Bucklew responded today. "Rather, one must show that drastic relief is likely to be granted by the appeals court. Defendant’s motion does not state, nor does it demonstrate, that Mr. Little’s claims meet such a compelling standard."
Little was convicted in June on ten counts of distributing obscene material through the mail and the Internet. The charges stemmed from an FBI investigation in which a separate distributor, Jaded Video, mailed European versions of five Max Hardcore videos to an undercover postal inspector. The indictment also charged Little in connection with online trailers for the movies.
Little was sentenced to 46 months in prison. His websites were confiscated by the government and he was fined a total of $87,500.
At post time, Little told AVN he has not yet received his required letter from the U.S. Marshals Service with orders on when to begin serving his sentence.
