David Lang of Oliya Productions in Great Neck, New York issued the following press release:
"This is an urgent message to be released to all publications whose readership deals with adult material.
"I am a producer of Adult Videos. I work with a model agency in Eastern Europe. They had a Web Site. On their web site were several links to other adult web sites. One of these links lead to a site that supposedly had bestiality on it. Another link lead to a site that supposedly had underage models. Both links were in other countries. The owners of the model agency had absolutely no relationship to these other sites.
"In August, based on the contents of the links ONLY, Interpol and the local authorities arrested the owners of the model agency and all of their employees for Child Pornography, and crimes against nature. They confiscated all records, equipment, possessions and monies. One of the owners has been released awaiting court, the other is still in jail. I know these men - the only thing they are guilty of is adding these links to their site. All Web Owners should be forewarned - they may start becoming responsible for what is on sites that are linked to theirs!
"Even worst! My understanding of the situation includes the facts that the authorities are using the agency's records to investigate all producers of adult materials that are on the agency's records. Based on the business associations with indicted child pornographers, as far a field from the truth that this indictment is, this very thin excuse will be used to investigate American and European clientele of the agency is a VERY REAL threat!"
When contacted, Lang said he was "horrified" over the situation as it was occurring. According to Lang, the modeling agency being investigated by Interpol is Logos out of Riga, Latvia. Lang's video company, Oliya, has been doing business with Logos which has provided models for Oliya's various lines like My Midlife Crisis. Lang says he specializes in fresh faces and Oliya was coming up with the freshest of the European stock in modeldom. Outside one or two scenes in his first few releases, Lang says he's been shooting most of his stuff in Latvia.
"They provide models mostly to European production companies," Lang notes."One of the partners is still in jail. One just got out. They did have a modeling website [authorities closed it down - Lang wasn't positively sure what Logos' URL had been], and on the bottom of the site it had a couple of links to adult sites in Germany and the Netherlands. According to Interpol, if you opened those links to whatever sites, there were pictures of bestiality and underaged models.
"Whether they were having sex or not is not clear. But based on that, they were able to get warrants and walk into the offices [of Logos] and lock everybody up. Interpol had gone through all the paper work, and I was one of the American companies they were asking about. I was in Logos's computer records as one of their customers for the modeling agency. I do know that there were some other American companies that he was working with as well.
"I know these guys very well," Lang adds. "I know they were absolutely very careful about not doing anything that would get anyone in trouble. I'm very adamant about that, and I know I haven't done anything as far as working with anyone who's underage. The important thing is that Interpol is able to make the case about having something on your website that is completely unrelated to you but links to something questionable.
"Obviously there's countries where it's not illegal to have bestiality; and there's countries where you only have to be 16 like the Netherlands. In Latvia, 16 was the legal age to do porno videos. I wouldn't do anything like that because I wouldn't be able to sell it, so everyone I worked with was over 18. They only changed the law from 16 to 18 in January of 1999.
"This has scary implications. What concerns me, and what should be of concern to the AVN readers is that a lot of them have websites, and linking to someone with a questionable site in the Netherlands could be the basis to come and invade offices here in the states. That is a very big problem."
Lang said that he hooked up with Logos via the Internet.
