Four years after dodging a $65-million court judgment by fleeing the country, former online-porn mogul Stephen Michael Cohen was arrested by Mexican authorities in Tijuana and handed over Thursday to U.S. agents. Cohen is being held on a civil contempt warrant and will be arraigned at 1:30 today.
Cohen, a multiple felon and longtime con man, had been on the run since before 2001, when a judge ordered him to pay Gary Kremen for hijacking the Internet address Sex.com.
Those following the case were a bit surprised by the news. Kremen’s counsel Tim Dillon said it’s highly unusual for a felon to be deported from Mexico to the U.S. for civil contempt and the details surrounding his capture were still a bit hazy.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Cohen, who had been living in a Tijuana mansion, was arrested on an immigration violation by Mexican authorities and turned over to agents of the U.S. Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service, according to Deputy Marshal Tania Tyler.
“I just know that Steve was arrested in Mexico when he tried to resolve some Mexican visa issues,” Dillon says.
Kremen, who had been working with authorities to capture Cohen for some time, was understandably pleased with the news.
“It’s a good day,” he says. “This is pretty interesting. The question is, will he crack in jail?”
Kremen expects additional charges including money laundering, forgery and wire-tapping will eventually be filed.
In 1995, Cohen forged a letter to Internet authorities to gain control of Sex.com, which he transformed into a highly profitable site for porn ads.
Cohen was being held without bail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego, the same facility his daughter Jhuliana is being held in. Jhuliana is awaiting an October 31 sentencing hearing on charges that she attempted to smuggle 200 pounds of marijuana across the U.S./Mexico border.
His apprehension was the latest twist in one of the most bizarre and longest-running feuds of the dot-com explosion.
The latest round resulted in Cohen’s appeal of the $65 million judgment to the U.S. Supreme Court being denied, effectively ending long-running litigation over the domain itself.
