Cincinnati Couple Go to Trial August 19 Remember what I said a couple of days ago what was going to happen in Cincinnati in wake of adult movies being pulled from pay-per-view. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of the following cases with attorney Lou Sirkin working overtime: This time a Cincinnati couple- Jennifer Dute, 31, and her husband Alan, 61 will be going to trial next week. The Dutes were indicted by a Hamilton County grand jury this past April on four counts of pandering obscenity, charges that carry a maximum sentence of four years in prison. Their company, A&J Specialty, also was indicted on four counts of pandering obscenity and faces a maximum fine of $40,000. The search warrant was served March 21. Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen said the pair sold pornographic videos by mail despite a court order prohibiting such sales to or from Hamilton County. Authorities said sales were made Feb. 11, March 4, March 7, and March 21. Officials said the Dutes pleaded guilty to similar charges three years ago. In 1999, Jennifer Dute faced two counts of pandering obscenity and a possible three years in jail. At that time she was accused of starring in two videos Jennifer 2 and Jennifer 3 and then marketing them on a Web site and in a local newspaper, Everybody's News- now defunct. Prosecutor Mike Allen said the Hamilton County Sheriff's office investigated the case and purchased copies of the videos. Allen said investigators determined they may violate community standards for obscenity. Dute avoided going to prison when she swore she'd never again sell her home-made porn tapes in or from Hamilton County. But Hamilton County officials say she lied because they bought more home-made porn tapes - starring the 31-year-old Ms. Dute - from her Anderson Township home at least four times in February and March. AND Like Elyse Metcalf before here, Jennifer Dute goes to trial Monday morning in Cincinnati on obscenity charges. Undoubtedly this will be another high profile case that the Free Speech Coalition will choose to ignore. Unlike Metcalf who owns and operates a store, Dute has been selling videos from her website www.jendd.com. And that's what she got busted for. Dute: It started out where they came after me in November, 1999. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I didn't get out until Friday morning. We ended up making a deal at that time. The company- hell we don't even have a company- the prosecutor made up a company name right there and said we'll charge the company with one count of pandering obscenity. It was a $2500 fine and we agreed not to sell to or from Hamilton County. It was an agreement that we did abide by. We moved our address to Clairmont County. That's where we got our mail and that's where we sent the mail from. The way we checked to see if something was in Hamilton County- if we got something from Ohio- was the official Hamilton County Ohio Auditor's Web site (http://www.hamiltoncountyauditor.org)....The two addresses in question did not come up on that site. So we said if it didn't come up, it's not in Hamilton County. Evidently that's not true. There were two addresses- one could sit on the Butler County line and the other location we saw where it should have been, but there wasn't anything there. It was right next to a park. My videos are not obscene in the first place. Gene: Is it your suspicion that it was a sting. Dute: Oh yes. Because when someone sends us mail requesting information, or they've tried to place an order and they're in Hamilton County, we send them a letter back stating we can't fill your order thanks to the agreement that we made in March, 2000 that we wouldn't sell to Hamilton County. If you have any problems with this you need to contact Simon Leis [the Hamilton County Sheriff] who thinks he can rule the world from his desk. Well the cops got one of those letters and it pissed Simon Leis off. He deiced tp work something where he could get me. He did as far as getting me to send the videos to somewhere that's technically in Hamilton County. Gene: You say your videos are not obscene. Dute: They're not. Gene: What's the content? Dute: They're our lifestyle videos. Videos of my parties and the swinging lifestyle. The most out there we would have is similar to a gangbang- a bunch of guys and a couple of girls. There's no anal. There's no fisting. There isn't anything like that. The only thing is multiple people having sex. Everybody's having a good time. There's nothing illegal going on. No drugs. No pot. Nothing. Maybe alcohol and smoking cigarettes. That's about it. Gene: What are they prosecuting you for. Dute: Pandering obscenity- selling videos. Gene: Which are these? Dute: Jennifer 2, 3, 6 and 7. Gene: You sell those for how much? Dute: $30 each or 2 for $50. They're all me as far as content goes. Gene: These are still available? Dute: Yes. Gene: This is absolutely amazing. Dute: It is in that I own the www.simonleis.com domain name and I have it forwarding to a list of Cincinnati Enquirer articles about him and some of the stupid things that he's done over the years. He got his panties in a wad over that and I had to take that down. But I own the domain name. Gene: That should piss him off. Dute: It does. But I'm not doing anything wrong with it. It's not like I've got a porn site on it. All I had was links to articles about him. He just doesn't like me. Gene: How did you come to know Elyse Metcalf. Dute: I saw her situation come up on TV. We had never made it to her shop but we heard when the case came against her. I haven't met her, but we'll meet for the first time this afternoon. I talked to her for about an hour last night on the phone. I did write a letter to the editor the week of her trial saying that there were people in Cincinnati who supported her. They printed it the day before she got acquitted. Then she had the incident with the fire. I did send her some flowers then. I think it'll be interesting to talk to her more and get her insight on this whole thing. Gene: What happens Monday. Dute: We go to trial. We pick a jury and try it. Gene: What do you stand to lose if convicted. Dute: According to the newspaper, four years in jail. It's four counts for me; four for my husband and four for the business. Gene: What brings your husband into it? Dute: I don't have a clue. As far as putting the video in the box and addressing it, he did that. Part of their evidence is that they've got fingerprints of his on the box. Gene: There's an open and shut case. Dute: They have an fingerprint expert to say, yes, those are his fingerprints. They're submitting that into evidence. Also, he's the person who took the videos and he's in some of it. But why they're including him is to cost us more money. Gene: Have you had any past experience with this Citizens for Community Values? Dute: No. I've read up about them and know about them. But I don't know how much they were involved in my last case because it didn't go to trial. I'm sure they said something in the newspaper. The newspaper here haven't even said anything. They haven't called me. It's not like I'm not listed in the phone book. Gene: Have you been getting weird phone calls. Dute: When it first hit in March we got a couple of weird phone calls, 'let's me- I want do buy some videos' . Stuff like that. There are supportive people in this area but they can't be seen as supportive, publicly. Gene: What are your feelings about all this. Dute: We're going to win; no doubt. I think it's totally ridiculous. If there was a way we could turn around and sue them for malicious prosecution I would do it. Because they did in fact go after me. They made numerous attempts to get me to sell videos to them. Because if they had not, they would not have gotten that letter. A. It's our lifestyle. It's showing other people that this is normal. Obviously people buy the videos. The people who buy them know what the content is because they have to search me out. I don't have to direct market to anybody. My website's there and I have ads in some adult magazines. But it's very plain language as to what the videos are. At the beginning of the videos we have a statement saying that this is our lifestyle. It's for consenting adults only. Everyone in these videos are over 21. And this is real life. This is not a play. We're not doing a movie. This is real people having real fun. Gene: How long have you been marketing these videos? Dute: Since early '99. My husband and I met in '97. Got married in May of '98 and we were in a lifestyle before we got married. The website and the videos just came out of that. It was not an idea for money to make the videos and sell them. But we were getting so many requests for pictures and let's swap videos, it just got to be too much to do for free. It grew into a website. Gene: It wasn't too long after that, that they started hassling you. Dute: Exactly. Actually they bought the videos in July, and they didn't get the grand jury indictment until the day before Thanksgiving. They saw an ad that somebody had posted somewhere about videos. Gene: You actually spent Thanksgiving in jail? Dute: Yes. They came and knocked on the door on Wednesday around 6 o'clock. I was e-mailing or something. They came and knocked on the door. There were a couple of plain clothes cops. They said they had a search warrant. I asked them what this was about. They said the business that you're in. I said the apartment business? They said, no, your porn business. At that time I got my husband. We have three apartment complexes that my husband owns which we manage. We have a home office. They came in and took everything. They took all of our computers, all of our files. They didn't mess with his apartment files. They took all of my video files, all of the videos, all of the order forms. They took our cable modem, digital camera, camcorders, VCRs. You name it, they took them. I had a computer in a box that hadn't even been opened. They took it. Eventually we got most of that stuff back but a year later that's just not worth it. Gene: So on Thanksgiving did they serve you turkey in jail? Dute: The stuff I got looked like process meat. They said you better eat it because that's the best you're ever going to get in here. I survived on what I call jail cookies. They're vanilla cream filled cheap cookies. That's about what I ate while I was there. Another thing about jail, they don't give you your medication. If you're taking medication for anything, barring diabetes, they don't give you medication. So I missed two days of it. They didn't process me when they brought me in. They brought me in and put me in a cell. They did not put me in the computer, so to speak. Then Lou came in Friday morning. He got somebody to get me a $40,000 bond and a judge to sign off on it. So he was able to get me out. When they came here on Wednesday I called Lou Sirkin that night. I said this is what was going on and I was freaking out at that point. I didn't realize they were going to arrest me and take me away. They had a search warrant. They didn't say anything about an arrest warrant. Then when I realized that I kind of flipped out. Lou told me it would be Friday morning before he could get me out. I didn't worry too much on that end. But since they did not put me on the computer, he couldn't find me when he went down there Friday morning. He had to find a friend of a friend to look in a back computer to see what my case number was. He had my social security number, my name, my maiden name, my date of birth but it wasn't in the computer. They were trying to hide me so I couldn't get out until the following Thursday when my preliminary hearing was. Luckily he found me or I would have been in there for a long time. Then on March 21, 2002----the day my son was born at 2:17AM, around 8AM, here come the cops with a search warrant. They looked like UPS men- not in police uniform or anything I was at the hospital obviously, as was my husband. My mom answered the door. All these cop cars swarm in. They said they had a search warrant for the house. They laughed at her when she said I was at the hospital and had just given birth. Luckily I had told my parents about the first incident or that would have been a big shock to them. My parents weren't mad about the whole situation. They were mad that the cops were there in the first place. They feel that it's a free speech-thing, too.