A former Dallas police officer and his wife were convicted on three federal obscenity charges yesterday for having sold videos that depicted rape and violent sex five years ago from their Website. They are each facing up to twenty years in jail.
Garry Ragsdale, 34, and his now estranged wife, Tamara, 32, were each convicted of one count of conspiracy to mail obscene material, two counts of mailing obscene material and aiding and abetting. The verdict was reached after 5 1/2 hours of deliberations following five days of testimony.
Sentencing will take place on January 23.
The videos in question were reportedly pirated, with the couple duping tapes from their home, though charges for that were not filed.
While local authorities dropped the case in 1998 in anticipation of a more severe penalty from the state, Garry Ragsdale was let go from his position as a patrol officer on the police force because the police chief felt that Ragsdale had broken local obscenity laws.
However, the state dropped their case as well, saying that do so “was in the interest of justice.”
Then in July of 2002 the case was re-opened by request of the Department of Justice. In March of 2003, and indictment was handed down.
The Ragsdale case is the first of three recent federal obscenity cases launched this year. Fellow Texan Jon Coil and his family and a number of his associates are facing obscenity charges, as are Rob Black and Extreme.
