"They don't want it done here, they want to stop me from doing it here," Isaac (Ike) Sandlin said over the phone from his St. Louis home base. Sandlin's the owner/photographer of PlayasEntertainment.com, an adult Website which has brought charges of patronizing and promoting prostitution upon him.
Sandlin was arrested in March, facing a May 12 court date since his release on $25,000 bond, three weeks following his March 23 arrest. Who he thought was an applicant to become a site model turned out to be an undercover police officer, and the two met at a mall in February, Sandlin carrying all the required release forms and age verification documentation. He then met the woman and her apparent boyfriend and modeling partner at his rented studio - not realizing he was a sting target.
He can't quite figure out at least one apparent peculiarity of the case as he sees it, either. "From my understanding," he said, "whenever you pursue a case against a business, you're going to take one or two items for evidence, right? But I haven't been convicted yet. And you're going to put me out of business?"
Even more bewildering to Sandlin is how anyone made a prostitution connection to what he does. Essentially, PlayasEntertainment is a kind of produce-it-yourself adult video source, where you can pick your models, write and submit your script, and have it filmed for small enough costs depending on things like props, costumes, scenery, and other sundry items and settings. Sandlin said he doesn't accept projects involving what he considers extreme.
But he also said his particular kind of Internet and video operation isn't exactly the same thing as prostitution, as one would understand the practice commonly. "I don't know where they get it from," he said. "It's an adult site, people are getting paid for it, paid to perform - you're not being paid for sex, you're being paid to act. But that's the way they look at it.
"I'm following community standards," Sandlin continued emphatically. "I'm not shooting within a thousand feet of churches or schools, or where kids can see what's going on. Hell, I don't even shoot videos outside." Sandlin did the bulk of his shooting and filming either in his own apartment or at studio space he rented, but he admitted the possibility that even one of his neighbors might have tipped authorities, though he also admitted he could not necessarily prove that.
Sandlin's attorney, Robert Herman, told AVNOnline.com he is looking at this another way - that the statute under which Sandlin will be prosecuted may well be an overly broad interpretation of prostitution. The statute in question does not limit prostitution by definition as just the payer receiving sex from the person who is paid.
In recent years, the statute proved the undoing of a couple, Tom and Suzy Wahl, who had taught sexuality techniques by actual live demonstrations. "What they did was, for a fee, they would come and instruct you or your group on how to perform sexually," Herman said. "It was economically and more environmentally friendly; in-home demonstrations. And they were prosecuted, after being hired by undercover cops and doing their demo, and were charged under prostitution statutes."
The Missouri prostitution definition, however, isn't quite as broad as one in Iowa, Herman said, under which there are times when mere contact on the buttocks - even, theoretically, a ballet dancer lifting his partner with one hand on her buttock - could be called prostitution. But in the Missouri instance, and in Sandlin's case, Herman said he aims to try to show where the prostitution statute interferes with a Constitutionally protected activity.
"There are lots of non-sexually oriented films that call for some depiction of sexual behavior and the actor or actress submits to some depiction," Herman said. "Not to mention the fact that, as we all know in this business, pornography itself is Constitutionally protected. And if you have a statute that interferes with Constitutionally protected speech, then the stature is overbroad."
But it won't be overly simple to get the case resolved, Herman said. St. Louis County is known as a somewhat conservative county, and the appeals courts in the region are considered conservative, he said, "but they will listen to arguments." Given all that, Herman said, the Sandlin case could go on for many months.
Sandlin, other than having temporarily lost his livelihood, is ready. And one factor he wants to avoid leaning on is a factor he admitted he considers now and then - whether his race played any part in his arrest.
"I paid my rent at the studio with a check," he said. "And the check has the Website [name] on it. And the way you enter my particular area, once you come past one door, there's many more apartments. You really don't know what apartment someone's going into, and I'm the only black guy in that building. I'm not one of those guys who wants to push the issue of racism. But at the same time, I kind of think every time I make a squeak, the cops would be called on me."
For Sandlin, the case marks his first brush with real legal trouble since he set up PlayasEntertainment.com four years ago.
"I understand Missouri, when you mention anything regarding money and sex, they try to arrest you, and I don't want to be arrested," he said. "But I wasn't scared. I'm not breaking any laws. They don't have anything on me." The hard part for now, other than the coming prosecution, is that Sandlin also doesn't have his production equipment.
"They basically took me from self-employment to unemployment," he said, as authorities have seized equipment including four cameras, two camcorders, two digital still cameras, computers, videotapes, a lighting kit, and numerous other items. "Now I'm staying with a friend because I got evicted. I'm still speaking to people who put in requests at the Website, but I can't do anything. I can't shoot. I'm missing lots and lots of money. I can't make a living for myself."
