Larry Flynt not due in court until after election

Cincy Post ^ | 08/12/03 | Kimball Perry

[bedolido]

Hamilton County officials have agreed to wait to see if Hustler publisher Larry Flynt is California's next governor before proceeding to try to reinstate 1999 pandering obscenity charges against him. That was the result -- albeit tongue-in-cheek -- of a Monday hearing before Common Pleas Court Judge Patrick Dinkelacker.

The five-minute hearing was supposed to be standard because the issue is before the Court of Appeals and can't go forward in Hamilton County until the higher court renders a decision.

But the judge, wearing a smile, asked Flynt's lawyer if it was better to delay the Hamilton County case until after the Oct. 7 California election.

Flynt's lawyer, Lou Sirkin, also smiling, agreed.

Flynt and his brother, Jimmy, are next scheduled to be in court in Hamilton County for an Oct. 14 hearing before Dinkelacker.

In June, Prosecutor Mike Allen asked the judge to reinstate 1999 pandering obscenity charges against the Flynts, accusing them of violating a plea bargain of the 1999 case by continuing to sell sexually explicit videos in Hamilton County.

Before that case could be ruled on, though, Sirkin took the case to the Court of Appeals, saying the Flynts were dismissed as part of the 1999 case and cannot now have those charges reinstated.

The Flynts almost went to trial on the charges in 1999. After the jury was seated, though, a plea bargain was struck in which the brothers' corporation agreed to plead guilty, pay a fine and never again sell sexually explicit videos in Hamilton County.

The Flynts, though, started selling the videos again after a 2001 Hamilton County jury ruled that the videos sold by Elyse Metcalf at her adult book and video store in Over-the-Rhine weren't obscene.

Now, the Flynts contend that the "community standard" that determines what is obscene has changed in Hamilton County. Prosecutors asked that the 1999 charges be reinstated after undercover police bought videos from the Flynts' downtown Hustler store and deemed them to be obscene.

California's Oct. 7 election is to determine if Gov. Gray Davis will be recalled. Larry Flynt is one of several well-known names vying for the governorship.