Buttman John Stagliano

Evil Angel Productions owner John Stagliano will have his first formal chance to get the charges against him dismissed on Tuesday, Nov. 25, when his attorney Allan B. Gelbard will mount a multi-faceted attack on the government's contention that two DVDs sent by Evil Angel to FBI agents in the District of Columbia, and one trailer downloaded there, are obscene.

Gelbard's introduction to his Motion sets out the major arguments he will use before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon

Initially, all charges based on the downloading of the Internet trailer from the Evil Angel website are constitutionally impermissible as any finding of obscenity requires the work(s) must be 'taken as a whole' and evaluated based on 'contemporary community standards', Gelbard summarizes: Both terms have been found unconstitutionally vague as applied to Internet speech. Additionally, their cumulative effect, in combination with the government's ability to 'forum shop' the prosecution, further exacerbates the due process violation.

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Attorneys for John Stagliano have filed motions to dismiss the federal obscenity charges against the director and his companies, arguing that the Supreme Court test for obscenity is outdated and unconstitutional.

Attorneys Allan Gelbard and Paul Cambria filed their respective motions on Oct. 30 and 31 in reply to the federal government's opposition to the Stagliano defense team's original motions to dismiss the charges.

They contend in their motion that the First Amendment prohibits prosecution of E.A. Productions for use of an interactive computer service to distribute on-line communications because, unlike many off-line publishers, Internet publishers cannot control the geographic reach of their communications.

[T]he use of local community standards to judge the lawfulness of such on-line communications invariably subjects those communications to the restrictions of the most conservative communities in the nation, E.A. Productions submits that this reality unconstitutionally chills speech by allowing an Internet heckler's veto to these conservative communities.

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Evil Angel has launched DefendOurPorn.org, a website that will serve as the company's hub of information related to the obscenity prosecution brought against its owner, John Stagliano (alter ego Buttman).

DefendOurPorn.org contains news links about the case from numerous media outlets, a Contact Your Congressperson button, a PayPal page to make a donation to Stagliano's legal fund and a guestbook.

Evil Angel established the Defend Our Porn fund in response to fans wanting to help Stagliano's defense effort. Donations initially will be applied towards Stagliano's case, and the fund will live on after the trial. Any funds left over will be rolled over to other free speech causes.

Stagliano will be arraigned April 21 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. after which he will hold a press conference where he and his attorney, Allan Gelbard, will make statements and answer questions from the press.