In late September the couple began serving their prison sentences, Zicari at La Tuna Federal Correctional Institution in Texas and his wife at Waseca Federal Correctional Institution in Minnesota. Zicari and his wife were both sentenced to one year and one day in prison on July 1, 2009. Louis Sirkin initially argued that laws against the distribution of obscenity were unconstitutional since people have a right to own obscenity, but this argument was rebuffed on appeal.Īfter 6 years of legal costs, Black and his wife both pleaded guilty to the reinstated federal obscenity charges in hopes to avoid more extensive loss and penalties if they lost at actual trial. Zicari asked the adult industry for financial support to aid in his defense Flynt declined, saying that he only promotes consensual sex and that Zicari's actions harmed the industry as a whole. In April 2004, Zicari engaged in a public dispute with fellow pornographer Larry Flynt, who also had to fight various obscenity trials in the past.
Note that buyers of those materials do not break the law, since mere possession of obscenity (unlike production and distribution) is not illegal.
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Zicari remained in business during the trial he continued to market and sell the five tapes that are at the center of the prosecution as The Federal Five, with a portion of the sales price going to his defense fund. Zicari's company is located in Northridge near Los Angeles, but the trial took place in Pittsburgh, from where under-cover agents had ordered the offending materials. Zicari, his then wife Lizzy Borden and his company were indicted for distributing obscene pornographic materials.
In April 2003, the premises of Extreme Associates were raided by federal agents. These scenes possibly led to the subsequent undercover operation by federal authorities. After, Zicari was interviewed in the documentary and challenged Attorney General John Ashcroft. Theroux also leaves the set in a similar manner to that of the PBS documentary.
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The filming of the movie was also a part of documentary produced for BBC 2 hosted by Louis Theroux which follows various figures of the porn industry. The filming of Lizzy Borden's movie Forced Entry, which included several simulated rapes, was covered in the PBS Frontline documentary American Porn (2002) the makers of the documentary were repulsed and walked off the set. In addition, Zicari owns and operates Extreme Gifts, a store specializing in adult and marijuana products. Zicari owns and operates the American Cheeseburger restaurant.
In 2001, Zicari (as Rob Black) unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Los Angeles, receiving 789 votes. Beginning in 2000, Zicari and AVN Magazine engaged in a "propaganda war" against one another, and as a result, Black's products were not reviewed or advertised in that trade magazine for several years. His work often involved scenes considered egregious and extreme even by other members of the pornography industry, such as adult performers acting as young girls, or a simulated rape of a disabled person in a wheelchair in Miscreants (1997).īlack appeared as himself in the documentary film Sex: The Annabel Chong Story (1999). Janet Romano started to work for him in the same year, first as an actress and then as a director. In 1998, he founded the porn company, Extreme Associates, together with fellow porn directors Tom Byron and Van Damage and porn star Tiffany Mynx (who have since left the company). His former porn company Extreme Video was started in 1993/1994. Zicari became a porn director in the mid 1990s.