Bad Week on the Legal Front
Black, Borden & Surewood Face Time
With Jack Venice and Max Hardcore already behind bars, this week brought some more bad news on the legal front for the porn industry. First came news that Rob Black and Lizzy Borden put an end to their six-year legal fight by pleading guilty to one count of to of conspiracy to distribute obscene material. AVN has a great piece by Mark Kernes on the subject. (Read Article Here) With sentences ranging from 10 months to five years still a possibility, the pair could see the inside of a cell though that remains uncertain at this time.
The case revolves around three Extreme Associates movies, the most notable of which was Lizzy Borden’s Forced Entry. For those of you who missed this classic, it features a sexually violent serial rapist who worships Richard Ramirez and dispatches his victims in brutal ways after raping them. It was a movie that Lizzy Borden promised I would hate even before she finished making it. Given the fact that she had pregnant women being beaten, wives forced at gunpoint to tell their husbands they loved being raped and other warm and fuzzy moments, it isn’t a shock that she was dead on. In my final paragraph of the review I wrote the following: (Though this was before I saw a mainstream movie by David DeFalco called CHAOS Director’s Cut
With three scenes of relentless violence and rape, it’s no wonder I didn’t like the sex. In fact, that was a foregone conclusion that Lizzy acknowledged before the movie was even shot. This really isn’t supposed to be erotic. It’s violent, it’s shocking and that’s exactly what the director and performers were going for. The only real question is why. Why would anyone who isn’t looking to jerk off to rape care to waste two hours watching? The truth is, they wouldn’t. Given my feelings on the sex, it’s actually the story that disappoints me most of all. Maybe I am giving Lizzy too much credit here, but there is a story possibility here that might make watching Forced Entry worth while in spite the sex. The idea that someone is out there killing in name of the Nighstalker is an intriguing concept and pretty edgy for porn. Rob Black’s character would make sense in a movie like this. (Though he would have to be toned down considerably.) The potential cat and mouse game could be quite interesting. Instead of this sort of movie, we get three brutal rape scenes without a sense of humor or anything short of absolute darkness. In between these scenes are random scenes of silliness. I’m ready to give Lizzy the benefit of the doubt and assume that there was more of a movie here before Looch left, but as it is, it just falls apart as a feature. What you have is three scenes for people who really don’t think rape scenes go far enough in porn. For you guys, this is bound to be the best fucking porn movie ever made. For everyone else, it’s two hours that could be better spent picking lint from the bottom of our sock drawers. I’d say this was a front runner for worst movie of 2002, but I just got Fossil Fuckers 2 in the mail this week.
I interviewed Rob in 2006 (Read Interview Here about the case and he seemed upbeat about it then. It appears that the Feds dragged things out long enough to make it very hard on Rob and Lizzy. I would imagine that they were hoping that a new administration might change course. No such luck there. (I’m pretty sure a few industry folks owe me a beer on that bet.) At any rate, two more filmmakers are likely to go to jail and/or face heavy fines for making porn. I may not like a lot of the movies Rob and Lizzy make, but I hate seeing someone to go jail for making a flick. Hopefully the judge will decide that they don’t deserve to be locked up, even for making movies like Fossil Fuckers.
Gene Ross is reporting in this article that Brian Surewood’s legal troubles have come to a head. According to the story he is facing another 3 to 4 years after a plea deal in his murder/road rage trial. This is a horrible case. Brian is a really nice guy and I have always believed that he never meant to hurt anyone. He just got himself into a situation with another driver that spiraled out of control and the result was the death of a small child. He apparently entered a plea without admitting guilt, had a number of the more serious charges dropped and is being giving credit for time served. The story doesn’t say what the other defendant might be facing, but I would be curious to see what that guy gets.
It has been interesting to see the reaction from the porn industry to Brian’s case compared to those of Max, Rob or Jack Venice. It is pretty easy to see which of them have made the most friends over the years. A lot of people have reached out with support for Brian while some of the others have been taken away without much fuss. Hopefully Brain will serve his time, get out early for good behavior and return to doing what he loves.
