Considering that Joe Francis makes $40 million a year coercing young women to take their tops off with alcohol and peer pressure, it ain’t much. It is something:
The founder of the “Girls Gone Wild” video empire was sentenced to community service Wednesday for his company’s guilty plea to federal charges of failing to monitor the ages of the women in its videos.
The company, Mantra Films Inc., also agreed to pay $1.6 million in fines for using drunken 17-year-olds in videos it filmed on Panama City Beach during spring break and failing to properly label its DVDs and videos as required by federal law.
U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak told company founder Joe Francis he added the community service because it did not appear a fine would be a meaningful punishment.
That something doesn’t sound like much until I got to the judge’s jab.
The judge ordered Francis, his company president, general counsel and chief financial officer to each perform eight hours of community service monthly for the next 30 months.
But Smoak said the corporate officers could avoid the obligation, giving Francis the option of “stepping up” and serving 16 hours a month of community service by himself in their place.
Attorney Aaron Dyer, representing Francis and the company, said he did not know if Francis would take on the entire sentence himself.
I say he should serve at a battered women’s shelter. It sure cuts into the party bus time.
I don’t see much use in this; as he sustains himself off the exploitation of women, I doubt there would be anything resembling a transformation of character or even an epiphany of “Holy shit, abuse and exploitation really are wrong.”
Imagine needing/wanting to go to a shelter only to find this dude awaiting you. Fuck that.
Community service is a slap on the wrists. Ordering him to make some placards and parade around every single city his corporation has filmed in, much like this case, might be a step in the right direction.
Also, the fine is paltry, and only confined to the corporate person, not the human person(s) involved.
No, that won’t do.
Yeah, you’re right. I have to believe in the system of law lest I shoot myself in the jawbone.
I won’t tackle that one.
Me either.