An obscenity and child porn indictment against former CDBabes owner Mike Jones is in danger, now that a judge ruled a fall 2002 raid on his business and home equaled prior restraint on free expression and suppressed all the evidence gathered in the raid.
"They had a wholly unfettered discretion to seize anything they thought was obscene," said Jones's attorney, J.D. Obenberger, after the January 16 dismissal by Judge Sharon Prather, "and the Constitution doesn't allow that." Prather's move could mean the case against Jones being dropped entirely, possibly in a matter of weeks.
Jones, who sold CDBabes to Gecko Productions in December 2003, predicted the case would end up dead in a month or perhaps a little longer, now that all the evidence collected is not usable by the state. But he told AVN.com that the damage of the case to the business was such that he could only sell CDBabes rather than try to continue.
"In essence, they accomplished what they needed to accomplish," Jones said of his accusers and the raids on his business and his home. "They damaged our business. Basically, by it going this route (the evidence suppression and possible end of the case), I don't get to say what I really wanted to say, and that is that this thing was political as all hell, that the Village of Greenwood was just not happy that there was a pornographer in their midst.
"The judge determined the search warrant was void and constitutionally infirm and violative of the First Amendment because it was over broad," Obenberger told AVN.com "There was an ongoing adult erotic business that had a Website, that had DVDs, that sold content, and the warrant authorized police to seize everything – all computers, videos, DVDs, compact discs, floppies – for later examination at the police station, and functionally stopped expression, a prior restraint on speech without particularized probable cause."
Obenberger said the state's attorney has asked for a status hearing in the case in 30 days so prosecutors can decide what to do. Their options include asking Prather to certify that a prosecution is "materially impeded" in the case; or, they can file an appeal and take the case through a laborious appeals process just to get a new indictment and trial; or, the case could be dropped entirely.
Jones said he isn't certain yet of what action for redress he might take after the case is resolved. He said he hoped McHenry County would "take care of addressing the improprieties that happened within their departments." But he seethed when recalling the home raid's effect on his children.
"They sat my 14- and 11-year-old children down at our kitchen table and asked them if they did nude pictures for their daddy, did they ever have sex on film for their daddy," Jones said. "This wasn't a child abuse case. There were no indications of any kind of improprieties in my home. We kept the business from our children. They didn't know about the business until they sat them down at the kitchen table."
Since selling CDBabes and all his other adult online interests to Gecko, Jones has concentrated on preparing a new Website tied to custom exclusive shoots – including some for Gecko – while continuing his magazine shooting assignments.
Jones was arrested in late June 2001 and arraigned within a month on five felony counts of possessing child porn and nine misdemeanor obscenity charges, following a yearlong probe. He faced up to five years behind bars if convicted.
In early November 2001, Jones was granted the right to have actual copies of the evidence he was accused of possessing and not just photocopies, despite prosecutors arguing at the time that it would only let him distribute any or all images involved on his Website.
