More Trouble For Girls Gone Wild Producer

$2 Million Fine for Sexually Exploiting Children

September 12, 2006

Girls Gone Wild • GGW Producer Indicted • "Girls Gone Wild" Producer Fined $1.6 Million • Girls Gone Wild Fined $2 Million Fine for Sexually Exploiting Children • Girls Gone Wild Still Going Wild • Judge OKs Class Action Against Girls Gone Wild • Feds charge GGW producers • Consumer complaints • Best Buy cashes in • GGW producer arrested

The California company doing business under the name "Girls Gone Wild" has pleaded guilty to charges that it failed to create and maintain age and identity documents for performers in sexually explicit films that it produced and distributed, and that it failed to label its DVDs and videotapes as required by federal law.

Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Gregory R. Miller of the Northern District of Florida issued a joint statement, saying Santa Monica-based Mantra Films Inc. entered its plea agreement before a federal judge while a second related company, MRA Holdings LLC, also entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.

Under the agreements, Joseph Francis, the founder of the two companies, agreed to plead guilty to offenses to be filed later in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, and the companies and Francis agreed to pay fines and restitution totaling $2.1 million.

The charges in this case are believed to be the first to be filed under a law -- often referred to as Section 2257 -- passed by Congress to prevent the sexual exploitation of children.

The law protects against the use of minors in the production of sexually explicit material by requiring producers to create and maintain age and identity records for every performer in sexually explicit movies and other media. Producers and distributors must also label their products with the name of the custodian of the records and their location.

This is hardly Mantra Film's first brush with the law.

In July 2004 the Federal Trade Commission ordered Mantra to pay $1.1 million for "enrolling consumers who responded to Internet and television ads advertising a single video or DVD into "continuity" programs.

Once consumers were enrolled in these programs, each month the company shipped additional, unordered videos and DVDs on a "negative-option" basis, charging consumers' credit and debit cards for each shipment until consumers took action to stop the shipments."

Consumers complained they found it nearly impossible to cancel the continuity program. As late as June of this year, Mantra was still advertising all over late-night TV and the complaints file into ConsumerAffairs.com on a daily basis.

"I purchased 2 DVDs for $9.99 -- cancel any time," wrote Julian of Walnut Creek, Calif. "They began to send me 1 or 2 DVDs each month. I picked up on that quickly and tried to cancel my account. Over the course of several months I have called four times each time insisting that my orders be cancelled and that they stop billing me and stop sending me DVDs. Atrociously the DVDs continue to come despite all my efforts. They have taken over $250 from me."

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