Believe me or not, I didn’t know who’s Joe Francis or what’s Girls Gone Wild brand and never seen any Girls Gone Wild video. Still I don’t want to see Girls Gone Wild videos but… Joe Francis’ case is totally interesting because it’s a good example of the use of power in both sides.

Yesterday I spent my day on reading about Joe Francis and Girls Gone Wild. I’d like to share what I found without my opinions.

via evilbeetgossip

Who’s Joe Francis?

• Joe Francis was born in Laguna Beach, California. (April 1, 1973)
• His real name is Joseph R. Francis
• He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1995 with a dual degree: Film and Television Production and Business Administration. He developed a direct marketing business plan as a part of his education.
• After school, Joe Francis tried his direct marketing plan to sell gambling tapes but it didn’t work.
• He worked for Fox Television Network, Paramount Television and Buena Vista Television. (Yesterday an interview aired on Fox and hosted by Greta Von Susteren.)
• While he was working for Real TV, he discovered the existence of some disturbing videos like animal attacks, executions and accidents. These disturbing videos was “too” disturbing for broadcasting but also it was very popular in the circle of Real TV staff. He founded “Banned From TV” idea and applied his direct marketing formula when he developed in school. He was very tight in budget, after licensing the disturbing videos, he purchased some airtime on Late Night TV and started to wait for sales.
• In 1997, at the age of 24, Francis founded Mantra Films, Inc.
• in 1997, Banned from TV sales rose steadily from a few per day to dozens and then hundreds. Pale light of success has started to guide his way.
• With his growing money making success, Joe Francis faced a trial. An employee of the Real TV declared that he originated the idea for marketing the same video footage and filed a lawsuit demanding sharing Joe Francis’ profits. Jury found for the plaintiff in the amount of $3.5 million dollars.
• Joe Francis wasn’t happy with marketing disturbing videos. It was too disturbing for Joe Francis himself, not only for broadcasting on TV channels. He was selling a video product that he couldn’t watch! He started to search for other videos that he could market.

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via virtuealert

Joe Francis Starts Go Wild (and Girls Gone Wild)

• One day, one of his sources sent him a video tape. It was about some Spring Break revellers who’re getting arrested for public nudity. The tape was containing quick shots of college girls flashing their breasts. In a few weeks he decided to market this.
• When it came to air Girls Gone Wild commercials almost every TV channel turned advertisement down except E! Commercials aired on Howard Stern’s late night show. Sales were not as good as expected but it kept going up.
• Joe Francis was needing new tapes for marketing under the Girls Gone Wild brand. This time he decided to go out and produce his own tapes instead of buying from his sources.
• He started to offering plastic beads to girls in exchange for flashes. Later he and his crew decided to offer tank top t-shirts. It was better because girls were removing their own clothing to wear tank top t-shirts.
• In the year 2000, he produced a new tape titled Girls Gone Wild: Doggy Style. It was a big hit. After the success of Doggy Style, he started to work with Eminem on a similar project but Eminem wanted to turn down project when it was in editing room because of his successful movie 8 Mile.
• He’s the third man who have become known in public for building a business based on naked girls. Hugh Heffner, Larry Flint and now, Joe Francis.

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Mayor of Panama Bans Joe Francis and Girls Gone Wild Crew

• In 2003, mayor of Panama, Lee Sullivan banned Girls Gone Wild crew from his city.
• Same year Joe Francis filed a lawsuit against Panama, mayor, sheriff and chief of police to visit Panama and he won the case.
• Two weeks after, Panama City charged Joe Francis with a big list of 71 criminal charges (included from drug trafficking to racketeering) carrying a potential prison sentence of 335 years. The basis for the criminal charges is a cameraman who filmed two underage girls.
• He and his ten employees arrested and seized clothes, belongings, videotapes, and equipment along with Francis’ Ferrari and his Gulfstream jet. Joe Francis spent only a few hours in jail. He was released by a judge on $50,000 bail. Before he could even exit the jail, he was re-arrested by the same sheriff who arrested him the night before, for a new charge of drug trafficking for his legally prescribed 5 Vicodin pills. Later, charge of drug trafficking thrown out by court.
• When the judge asked the Florida state attorney why he did not drop the charge once he’d received a copy of Francis’ prescription, the state attorney replied that he had difficulty reading the doctor’s handwriting.
• The judge ordered the plane returned 90 days later.

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• In 2005 his Playboy Mansion like home named Casa Aramara completed. Some sources said that worth of Casa Aramara is more than $25 million dollars.

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Bad Times for Joe Francis

• On Dec. 13, 2006, in a federal corporate recordkeeping case, Mantra Films, Inc., the company Francis founded, pled guilty to technical charges of failing to keep sufficient records and improper labels on some DVDs.
• The Panama City law firm of Harrison, Sale, McCloy, and Thompson filed a civil lawsuit, against Joe Francis, on behalf of the women (the two 17 years old girls filmed in 2003), as well as the women’s parents.
• U.S. District Court Judge Richard Smoak ordered the parties in the civil lawsuit (not criminal) to attend a confidential mediation conference to try to settle their dispute. The initial mediation occurred on Wednesday, March 21 and Thursday, March 22, 2007, in two separate conference rooms at the Marriott Hotel in Panama City, Florida. The women’s lawyers demanded Joe Francis pay them and their clients $70 million dollars. No agreement was reached.
• Eight days after the initial mediation session the judge set a hearing for Friday, March 30. At the hearing on March 30, judge Smoak found Francis in civil contempt of court because he purportedly failed to mediate in good faith. The judge ordered Joe Francis jailed immediately, instructing him in open court that his choices were to “settle or jail.”
• Same day, Joe Francis’ attorney stood up and pleaded with the Judge for more time. The Judge told Joe Francis’ attorney that if Mr. Francis had not reached a settlement in 2 hours he must report to the U.S. Marshall’s office to be incarcerated.
• Three articles about this incident appeared in Panama City’s local newspaper, the News Herald. These articles were favorable to Joe Francis. Out of 342 stories on Joe Francis and Girls Gone Wild on the News Herald website, two of these stories are missing from the paper’s online archives.
• On Wednesday, April 4, Judge Smoak found Francis’ failure to settle and ordered Joe Francis to surrender to the U.S. Marshall no later than 12:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 5. Judge Smoak said that Francis would remain in jail for “whatever time it takes to get that set up with all deliberate effort.”

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Joe Francis in Jail

• Joe Francis flew to Panama City the following Monday in order to turn himself in. Immediately upon landing at the airport in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday morning April 10, Francis was seized by airport police on the arrest warrant, transferred to the county jail facility until the federal courthouse opened, and handed over to the U.S. Marshals.
• Joe Francis grudgingly signed a settlement agreement from the confines of his jail cell and executed a wire for the money through his lawyers.
• As he entered jail in 2007, Francis was never searched or informed of what he was or was not allowed to bring with him.
• Upon receiving evidence of the settlement agreement, Judge Smoak lifted the civil contempt order and dismissed the civil lawsuit, but a few hours later, ordered Joe Francis with a charge of criminal contempt of court for surrendering to custody 4 days late, thereby keeping him in jail. That night, Joe Francis was visited by Deputy Faith Bell and Bell made up an arrest warrant for 9 felonies based on the “contraband” found in Francis’ cell, which called for penalties totaling 85 years in prison, based on each cholesterol pill and sleeping aide pill and for the cash found in Francis’ cell.
• Bell added another charge accusing Francis of “bribing a public official” because he’d apparently asked a guard if he could buy a bottle of water from the jail store. The guard informed Francis there was a $100 limit for his purchase and he must fill out a commissary form which the guard provided to him. Francis filled out the proper form and gave the guard cash to accomplish the transaction. This became the basis for the charge of “bribing a public official” – a serious felony carrying a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
• Panama City prosecutors never charged Francis with bribing a public official and five of Bell’s other charges. However, they still filed two counts of introducing contraband into a detention facility.
• With the new “contraband” charges just filed, the Panama City prosecutors made it clear they intended to put Francis in jail until his trial date.
• Joe Francis requested the right to be tried by a jury for the criminal contempt charge. Judge Smoak denied this request.
• Judge Smoak sentenced Francis to serve 35 days in jail.
• As Francis began serving Judge Smoak’s 35-day sentence in Panama City’s Bay County jail, Francis was kept in solitary confinement in a unit populated with murderers.
• Francis heard from one of the guards that the guards had been instructed to make his life miserable.
• Francis served out the rest of his 35 days in the Bay County jail. On the same day he finished his sentence in Panama City, Francis was taken into federal custody and transported to a county jail in Reno, Nevada, to face federal allegations of tax evasion.
• Francis is charged with filing with the Internal Revenue Service a false and fraudulent Form 1120S, U.S. Income Tax Return for an S Corporation, for Sands Media, Inc. (a company for which Francis allegedly is the sole shareholder, president and chief executive officer), for the year 2002. The indictment charges that the return overstated deductions, including $3,784,390 for construction of a residence in Punta Mita, Mexico, as a false consulting services expense; a false $500,000 insurance expense; and an additional $10,411,020 in false consulting services expenses.
• The indictment also charges that Francis understated his income on his own 2002 Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return.
• The indictment also charges various violations for the year 2003, including an allegedly false insurance expense deduction of $1,666,666.67 on the 2003 Form 1120S return for Mantra Films, Inc., a company for which he allegedly is the sole shareholder, president and chief executive officer.

Related Links:

• Joe Francis Goes Wild on Prosecutor - E! (October 23)
• The ‘Dog’ fights for incarcerated ‘Girls Gone Wild’ Francis - People (October 23)
• Joe Francis Hires Slick Mike Sitrick - Gawker (October 25)
• Joe Francis is fighting back against another lawsuit, this time facing accusations of sexually assaulting a woman — that he never even met! - TMZ (October 30)
• Florida Federal Court Closes Lawsuit Brought by Women Against Girls Gone Wild - Earth Times (November 1)
• Joe Francis: ‘The Only Criminals Are Those Persecuting Me’ - ABC News (November 9)
• Joe Francis Behind Bars - Inside Edition (November 16)
• The Shameless Spring-Break P**n King - Yahoo News (November 17)

To be continued…

Footnote:
John 8:7 He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone…