Bubba's buddy is back in court...no the other dog.
MAY 04, 08:47 EDT
Larry Flynt Returns to Cincy Court
By TERRY KINNEY
Associated Press Writer
CINCINNATI (AP) — Hustler publisher Larry Flynt commands a porn empire that has made the self-described ''smut peddler'' very rich, awfully powerful and terribly bold.
Now, more than two decades after making his reputation in a Cincinnati courtroom, Flynt plans to return to the city again to face a new set of obscenity charges.
''I've always said if something is not worth going to jail for, it's not worth very much,'' Flynt said from his office in Los Angeles. ''I'm not looking forward to it, but I knew the risk involved in the beginning.''
If his trial scheduled for May 10 in Cincinnati were a movie, it would probably be a sequel. A portion of ''The People vs. Larry Flynt'' depicted his 1977 obscenity trial and portrayed him as a defender of free speech.
This time, Flynt hopes to overturn a U.S. Supreme Court decision that lets community standards determine what's obscene. Flynt said such standards now are much more relaxed.
''The world is becoming much smaller,'' Flynt said. ''When that Supreme Court decision was made in 1973, those justices had an idea of what the community was. That no longer exists. If someone has a computer in Cincinnati, they can download material from all over the world.''
County Prosecutor Mike Allen disagrees. ''I don't know that community standards and mores have changed in Hamilton County that much since the last go-round,'' he said.
Flynt, 56, and his brother, Jimmy, 52, were indicted April 7, 1998, on charges of pandering obscenity, disseminating material harmful to a juvenile, conspiracy and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.
''I would like to win this case more than anything else in the world,'' Flynt said. ''But it would probably be better for the country if I lost. Because if I win, nothing changes; if I lose, the case can be appealed.
''That's where you change laws, at the appellate level. And that's what I'm attempting to do now is to get the antiquated obscenity laws off the books.''
In 1977, Flynt was convicted of pandering obscenity for selling his magazine in Cincinnati, but the conviction was overturned on appeal in 1979. He was never retried.
That led the City Council to pass an emergency ordinance requiring businesses with a ''significant'' but unspecified portion of adult-oriented merchandise to get a special permit and to do business in areas zoned for industry.
Irritated that obscenity crackdowns kept Hustler from being readily available in Cincinnati, Flynt recently opened his own sex shop just steps away from the city's downtown centerpiece, Fountain Square. Jimmy Flynt is the manager.
It's there that prosecutors say a 14-year-old boy bought a sex video. With that charge included, each brother could get up to 24 years in prison and $65,000 in fines.
Larry Flynt previously has taken his First Amendment fight all the way to the top. In 1983, Flynt's sex magazine ran an ad parody suggesting the Rev. Jerry Falwell lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse.
The Baptist minister won on the emotional-distress charge and a federal jury in awarded him $200,000 in damages. But in 1988, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the award by ruling that even pornographic spoofs enjoy First Amendment protection.
Last year he recast himself as an avenger of Washington, D.C., sexual hypocrisy, offering monetary rewards to expose adulterous lawmakers following the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Early this year, former Rep. Robert Livingston resigned days before he was expected to become speaker of the House after confirming Flynt's discovery that he had had adulterous affairs.
Flynt said he wants his new impending trial again to focus the national debate on sexual expression.
''It seems like no one is willing to have any sort of meaningful dialogue on sexuality in this country, and I find that troublesome,'' Flynt said.
''Sex is the medium we use to communicate with, more than anything else, so you'd think we'd make a little bit better effort to understand it.''
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