bargained his way out of trouble, he is trying to peddle his Hustler magazine to Cincinnati's retailers. It was only last Wednesday, May 12, when Flynt, 56 , and his brother, Jimmy, 52, accepted a negotiated plea bargain initiated by their attorneys.
Cincinnati's Hamilton County prosecutors agreed to let the Flynts' business, Hustler News & Gifts Inc. replace the Flynts as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and dropped 13 charges against the brothers. Hustler News & Gifts, managed by Flynt's brother, was found guilty of two counts of pandering and fined $10,000. Additionally, all of the sex videos had to be permanently removed from the Flynt's downtown store.
Obviously, Flynt is taking advantage of the outcome by interpreting it to mean it is permissible to sell his sexually explicit publications in Hamilton County.
"I'll be actively soliciting retail outlets in Hamilton County to let them know that all Larry Flynt Publications magazines will be available," Jimmy Flynt said. "The county does not want the videos sold; we just used them to force the issue of the magazines anyway."
"All of our magazines are going to be on sale," Jimmy Flynt said. "We publish 30 different explicit magazines and they're going to be on sale." Currently, Hustler News & Gifts sells approximately 1,100 copies of Hustler each month, while Hustler has a nationwide magazine circulation of around 750,000.
Claiming the trial results amounted to saying that selling Hustler magazine was legal, Flynt is posturing himself to sell his publications to newsstands in the area. So far, newsstands in Cincinnati have mostly declined distribution of Hustler. This may be due to an aversion to costly legal battles and a lingering memory of a 1977 court case where a Cincinnati jury let it be known that Hustler was unwelcome in their community.
While Flynt is claiming a court victory, Hamilton County's prosecutor, Mike Allen, explained the settlement doesn't shield Hustler from prosecution. Although "[t]he subject of this indictment was the 16 sexually explicit videos; there's nothing anywhere that says we cannot revisit the issue with respect to Hustler magazine…. If something is presented to me or my office that we consider violative of the law, we can and will present that matter to the grand jury."
