By Marc Randazza
Following a three-month-long investigation of Theresa and Warren Taylor – Theresa being better known as “Kimberly Kupps” – the Polk County sheriff arrested them both on charges of promotion and distribution of obscene material. The crime? Creating pornography in their own home, then selling it both on their paysite and the popular distribution site clips4sale.com. (Source.)
Sadly, this is par for the course in Polk County. The same Polk County where Philip Greaves, then living in Colorado, was indicted on obscenity charges for writing a book concerning pedophilia. Let’s not forget the 15-year-old who was suspended from using the bus for three days after he passed gas on it. And then there was the antique store owner who was charged with obscenity production for taking nude photos of willing participants – even if, at first blush, child porn charges may have been more appropriate. Maybe I have Polk County all wrong and this is all the doing of dedicated gestapo fuckhead Sheriff Grady Judd. But then again, Polk County is home to all the drooling, meth-addled retards who keep electing him.
It would be comforting to write this off as another Judd-ism, write a blog post about it, and put the incident behind me. I don’t even live in Florida anymore; to hell with the place. This case, however, goes too far. Consenting adults, in the sanctuary of their own home, filmed themselves having sex — and by all accounts, the content they produced was pretty vanilla (e.g. no fisting, no watersports, no extreme bondage or BDSM, etc.). In addition, the couple wasn’t exactly rolling in dough from this venture: by available reports, their porn activities brought in $700 per month. (Source.)
Enough for a few nice meals, sure, but not enough to finance a credible criminal defense.
Never one to let common sense or the First Amendment to come between him and a camera, Judd went to the press shortly after these arrests. Fox 13 had the initial interview.
“We want a wholesome community here, we don’t want smut peddlers,” Judd said, “and if they try to peddle their smut from Polk County or into Polk County we’ll be on them like a cheap suit.”
[…]
“They should heed the warning: If you engage in creating or selling obscene materials we are going to lock you up, and we enjoy that,” he said.
The profundity and wisdom of Judd is matched only by Yoda himself. The last time I checked – I’m only a First Amendment attorney – “smut” is not a prohibited form of speech, much less a recognized category of speech. Child porn is not protected by the First Amendment. Nor is obscenity. Smut, whatever the hell it is defined as, is protected by the First Amendment, as is everything not falling within the child porn and obscenity exclusions. I’ll refrain from picking the low hanging fruit pointing out the hilarious irony of a peckerwood inbred like Judd mocking a cheap suit.
To Judd, this is a big game. He “enjoy[s]” when he can “lock you up.” He’s not going to let a few founding principles get in the way of getting his jollies. After a perusal of my prior coverage of Polk County affairs, I realized I’d left something unsaid that I want to say right now.
Grady Judd: fuck you.
And to the people of Polk County who enable this kind of bullshit for decades on end, fuck you, too.
When I’m not blogging, I’m busy running a law firm, Randazza Legal Group. You may have heard of it; I have the privilege of defending bloggers, decorated war veterans and porn companies from attacks on their free speech rights. I do not represent Mrs. Taylor or her husband. I will, however, be making a donation to their legal defense fund.
I encourage everyone else who values free speech to do the same. Inability to pay should not be a barrier to justice, especially in a case like this where the fundamental right to free expression is at stake. Making only $700 per month from their adult business operation, Judd probably just expects the Taylors to roll over and plead guilty – quickly. They shouldn’t, and we shouldn’t let them. I do not know if this will be the case, but it’s time for someone to end Grady Judd. Not to beat him, to ruin him. To bescumber his legacy and make his name forever synonymous with the worst, most oppressive kind of home-grown terrorism that he’s inflicted onto the people of Florida, deserving though they may be, for decades. I want him to have a forced, miserable retirement, and his children to quickly – in hushed shame – change their last names when he dies, to forever bury the shameful association. It is long past time for Judd to be forced into the outhouse where he spends most of his time secretly thumbing through a crusty Fredericks of Hollywood catalogue from 1977, panting while doing so, forever. (Proverbially! rhetorical hyberbole ftw.)
