Jail for Pornographers?

Despite periodic brouhahas over rulings on pornography, courts rarely jail anyone for peddling or promoting smut. The last defendant of note to do any time was Ralph Ginzburg, who served eight months for the prurient promotion of his magazine Eros. Now, however, three prominent pornicators--an actress, a publisher and a reformed smut merchant--face the threat of prison.

>The performer is Georgina Spelvin, energetic heroine of The Devil in Miss Jones. The movie is a standard little immorality play about a shy girl running graphically amuck in her own hardcore, X-rated fantasies. At last count it had grossed more than $8 million. Spelvin was paid a mere $500 (about $33 per staged orgasm, by one attentive critic's calculation). After making the 1973 movie, she did other similar epics, and by last summer had fetched up in Maine doing straight summer-stock theater.

Meanwhile, The Devil played in Memphis, where Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Parrish moved to indict everyone he could who was connected with the film. The federal offense charged: conspiracy to transport obscene materials across state lines, which carries a five-year maximum sentence. Parrish located Spelvin in Maine and tried to have her brought to Memphis for trial. Though she had never been in Tennessee, Maine Civil Liberties Union lawyers were unable to fight off Parrish's long-arm grab. So the celebrated porn actress came at last to Memphis. "Well," she said after being arraigned, "the 50th anniversary of the 'monkey trial' in Tennessee is coming up, so I guess they had to do something." Said Robert Howe, executive director of the Maine C.L.U.: "Actors and writers and artists who have no control over where their work is displayed will now be afraid their film or book or painting may end up in Memphis and result in their being dragged off to the Bible Belt for trial."

> Shortly after the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography issued its report in 1970, Publisher William Hamling brought out his own version of it--fleshed out with 546 explicit illustrations of what the report was talking about. His $12.50 publication quickly sold 50,000 copies before the Government cracked down. A jury decided that though the book was not obscene, Hamling's promotional brochure was. He drew a four-year sentence and $87,000 in fines. Three employees of his were also convicted. A 53-year-old millionaire who has published books by J. William Fulbright as well as Henry Miller, Hamling claimed that the prosecution was "a thinly disguised political move" by the Nixon Administration in retaliation for his large Democratic Party contributions. Nonetheless he will probably be jailed shortly, having just lost a final bid before the Supreme Court.

> He used to be known as "Thevis the Porn King." Now he is just plain Mike Thevis, who lives in Atlanta on a 35-acre estate. Thevis, 42, once claimed control of 90% of the nation's "adult book stores," to say nothing of some 30 dirty-movie theaters. But he sold all that in 1973--for $5,700,000--and now he says he wants to wallow in virtue. He distributes clean records and clean movies. Further, he is trying to give his mansion to the city as a school, and he wants to create a park and shopping area like San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square. But the past still plagues Thevis. Convicted in both Jacksonville and New Orleans several years ago on various federal charges of interstate transportation of obscene materials, he faces five years in prison. He has filed a motion with the Jacksonville judge asking for probation, and he expects a ruling any day from the New Orleans judge on a similar request. The basis for his two petitions: Thevis is currently confined to a wheelchair after a motorcycle accident more than a year ago shattered his legs and pelvis. He has had nine operations and still faces further surgery.

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