BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON -- Pornography moves into the legal spotlight in Butler County this week as the first of four trials involving two adult video stores begins today.
The trials represent a major effort by county authorities to crack down on sexually oriented businesses.
Some see the trials as a chance to strike a blow for family values, while others see them as an attack on free speech.
The focus of these four trials is VIP Video and Millville Video, both in Millville, a small community just west of Hamilton.
"We hope that by prosecuting these two stores that the juries, like the grand jury, find the material obscene," said Dan Gattermeyer, an assistant county prosecutor who's handling all four cases. "That will help set the community standards for what's allowable and what's not allowable. Obscenity has never been protected by First Amendment."
But Scott Greenwood, a Cincinnati attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said these kind of trials do imperil free speech.
"The First Amendment is about freedom and liberty," Mr. Greenwood said. "The same First Amendment that protects your right to watch Gone With the Wind on videotape also protects your right to watch adult videos if that's your choice."
The four cases involve two video store owners and three clerks. The first trial starts today. Billy J. Doan, a VIP Video clerk, is scheduled to stand trial in common pleas court for two counts of disseminating harmful material to juveniles.
She is accused of selling four adult videos to a 17-year-old sent into the store by vice officers with the Butler County Sheriff's Office with the permission of his parents.
One count is a felony that carries a possible jail sentence of six months to one year. The second count is a misdemeanor that could result in a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. After this week's trial, there two more are scheduled in August and one in October:
On Aug. 24, the trial of Peter Tomaino, owner of VIP Video, is to begin. He faces the same charges as Ms. Doan involving the sale of videotapes to the 17-year-old.
On Aug. 31, the trial of Lloyd "Ken" Davidson, owner of Millville Video, is to begin. He is charged with two counts of pandering obscenity stemming from the sale of three videos to an undercover deputy in February. The charge carries a possible jail sentence of six months to one year.
These two trials and the one beginning today will be handled by Judge H.J. Bressler.
Mr. Tomaino, Ms. Doan and another VIP Video clerk, Caroletha Geter, were to be tried beginning Oct. 5 before Judge Anthony Valen on three counts of pandering obscenity. Undercover officers bought the videotapes in February at the store, police said.
They are the first pornography trials in Butler County since the mid-1980s, when two trials involving pandering obscenity charges against a Fairfield video store resulted in two hung juries. Judge Bressler, then a part-time judge and full-time attorney, was appointed to preside over the first trial, which took place in February 1985. Judge John Moser handled the second trial, which occurred in March 1986.
H. Louis Sirkin, the attorney for Mr. Tomaino and Mr. Davidson, was an attorney for the owner of the Video Store in both trials.
Mr. Sirkin also is the lead defense attorney in the Larry Flynt obscenity case in Hamilton County.
The mid-1980s obscenity case centered on a Fairfield shop called The Video Store, which is no longer in business. The owner was accused of selling five allegedly obscene videotapes to undercover police in June 1984.
In the current cases against the two Millville video stores, the charges were spurred, in part, by complaints from a group called Butler County Citizens Against Pornography that formed last year. The group's complaints prompted Butler County to develop a proposed zoning law that would restrict sexually oriented businesses to industrial areas in the six townships controlled by county zoning regulations.
Mr. Greenwood said the prosecution of adult video stores is motivated by politics and personal taste.
"It's politically popular for prosecutors to go after these store owners and the people who work in them," he said. "It makes them look like they're tough on crime."
But sexually oriented businesses can have a corrosive effect on communities, increasing crime and decreasing property values, said Kathy Fondacaro. She is director of communications for the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, a non-profit organization in Springfield Township that trains those who want to develop anti-pornography groups.
She said these four trials could help Butler County avoid becoming a magnet for sexually oriented businesses.
"We hope that the community standards are maintained and that justice is done," Ms. Fondacaro said. "You may want a choice of whether you can look at it or buy this material, but you don't want these businesses in your back yard. They're trouble."
Mr. Greenwood said that defining what a community considers obscene can be tricky.
"It sort of flies in the face of reality in 1998 to argue that adult videos are obscene according to community standards," he said. "The brutal reality is that a huge number of Americans watch X-rated movies. They may not admit it, but they do."
