The Madness of Joe Francis: "I thought we were all just having fun. I was wrong." (30 page)

“If Mr. Francis had followed these laws, it would have denied him his most vulnerable victims: minors.”

The plaintiffs in this case were 17, 16, 15 and 13 when they encountered Girls Gone Wild. Selander said the brains of people that young are not as fully developed as those of adults, especially in the area of thinking things through.

“They live in the present. Sometimes they make lousy decisions, that’s why we have to protect them.”

“So these minors were exploited and they were severely damaged. These stories were both tragic and sad. The evidence will show this is the type of behavior that has to be punished and stopped.

“There’s no question how old these girls were.”

“Objection. There is.”

Overruled.

“Let me tell you about each of these plaintiffs.”

Plaintiff B was a straight-A student, accepted to a good college, in student government, outgoing with lots of friends, a stable family and was a regular church goer.

“She was a good kid.

“At the age of 17, she was given alcohol and likely drugs and filmed a scene with Girls Gone Wild with a friend of hers who also was a minor. It’s nasty. It’s graphic.

“They took that film, produced it into a video and distributed it worldwide.”

“Objection, the video was never distributed.” Francis might have been thinking about Plaintiff V, not B. At times it was hard to hear the difference.

Overruled.

“She was called a slut. She was called a whore. She was cast out of her school, her community, her family. She was hospitalized three times. She was alone and at one point she was homeless, sleeping on a beach. She became a substance abuser.”

He leaned in to the microphone and dropped his voice.

“And then, the deepest tragedy of all,” he said. “She had to tell her father. The evidence is going to show that as she was talking to her father, this otherwise healthy father, died. And she blames herself.”

The deep, breathless mood Selander had built was interrupted by a snort and sigh from the defense table.

“Objection. Relevance,” Francis stood and tossed a legal pad dramatically onto the table in front of him. “How does that apply to Girls Gone Wild? Is he implying that Girls Gone Wild killed her father? Objection.”

Overruled.

Plaintiffs S and J were sisters who went to the beach. While stuck in traffic they were approached by a cameraman and bullied into flashing. That footage was put into a video with pornographic material and sold.

“Objection, it was never sold.” I’m not sure where that came from.

Overruled.

“Oh, and your honor, it’s not pornography under Florida law.”

Selander returned to his opening. He said J and S thought the footage was only going to be used for a personal video.

Nine months later, the video was released and suddenly everyone in their community knew. At school, they were called names, groped and asked to perform sex acts on demand.

“They both dropped out of school and they began a downward spiral. The 13-year-old tried to kill herself, twice. Plaintiff J had children out of wedlock at a very early age.

“Both became substance abusers.”

Plaintiff V was particularly vulnerable because she’d lost her mother about six weeks before meeting Joe Francis. Her father had physically abused her since the time she was six.

Plaintiff V was 16 when she was driving with four friends on Front Beach Road. They saw the Girls Gone Wild bus and pulled over. Her friends agreed to go to the Chateau Motel where two got into a shower. It was March 31, 2003 and a few days later, Francis would be arrested because of what happened in that motel room.

“Mr. Francis forced that 16-year-old girl to masturbate him, then gave her fifty bucks and then took her driving around in his Ferrari. He then coerced her, and there’s no other way to say it, you’ll see it, into flashing.

Selander said Plaintiff V only went to the motel room because she was “afraid for her friends.”

Later in the day he took her behind the building where a camera crew pressured her into flashing.

She tried to get away, Selander said. He would not let her go.

Francis was arrested and the flashing scene was seized as evidence. It was never distributed. But word circulated that V was involved in the case.

“She was linked to Girls Gone Wild. She began a downward spiral.”

She too was called a slut and a whore. She turned to drugs and, feeling isolated, she tried to kill herself.

“She is still struggling to put this behind her.”

The sheriff’s office went through the films seized in Francis’s arrest and identified many girls who were minors when they were filmed by Girls Gone Wild cameramen.

More than 850,000 videos that included the footage of plaintiffs J, S and B were sold around the world.

“They are there forever.” Every time some stranger watches these videos, the girls are damaged again.

In addition, there are 174 videos that do not have the proper paperwork attached to them, in violation of federal law. They generated “millions and millions and millions of dollars” in revenue for Francis and Girls Gone Wild.

He said there might be some talk about fake IDs, but there will be no evidence that any of the plaintiffs produced a fake ID. Even if there was, it would be irrelevant. The law does not protect pornographers from minors who lie about their age. It’s up to the pornographer to make sure the people in their films are adults.

“This is child pornography we’re talking about here.”

“Objection, your honor,” Francis said, rising again and drawing out each word as if he was weary of saying them.

Overruled.

“While Girls Gone Wild made millions from the sale of these tapes, these four girls’ lives were forever altered. Their childhood was ended, they were robbed of it. Their lives had been forever diminished.”

At the end of the trial, he said, he would ask them to find there were “significant damages” to these girls.

Selander paused, then turned from the podium and took his seat at the plaintiffs’ table.

“Wow, I don’t know where to begin,” Francis said, walking to the podium and beginning his opening.

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just here to defend myself. I object to these eight $500-an-hour lawyers trying to get money out of me. This case is all about money.”

That led to the first of more than a dozen objections, sidebar conferences, admonishments and requests to Judge Smoak to have “that stricken from the record.”

Smoak had explained to Francis that an opening statement was only to be a guide for the jurors as to what Francis believed the evidence would show during the trial. Smoak reiterated that at sidebar.

Francis trotted back to the podium.

“The evidence will show,” he started, believing that phrase would make anything he said after that a proper opening statement, “that my business, Girls Gone Wild, is legal. You may not like it, but it’s legal. I would never risk this 13-year empire to film underage girls.

“There’s only one victim in this case: me.”

He talked about at least one plaintiff in this case who had said into the camera, “‘I swear to God, I’m 18.’ All of them say that. They swear to God, over and over. Strong statement.”

“This case is not about child pornography, it’s about money. These guys don’t care about the plaintiffs. They’re lawyers on contingency, they don’t care about anything.”

After the objection, Francis returned to the podium.

“The evidence will show, that I am against child pornography.”

He talked about how it was legal to film underage girls flashing their breasts in public, which led to another objection. Francis corrected himself and said that Judge Smoak would actually be the one explaining the law to them.

He said Girls Gone Wild films 30,000 girls a year.

“I wouldn’t risk everything I have to film two or three underage girls out of 30,000. It doesn’t make any sense.”

He said the company has safeguards in place to guard against underage girls being included in the videos.

“The evidence will show, the videos will show, that all of these innocent women lied about their ages to be on Girls Gone Wild and at that moment everything he told you” pointing to Selander “will go out the window.

“Are we gonna reward bad behavior? Are we gonna give them a lot of money because they tricked some of my cameramen into getting on Girls Gone Wild? They were not coerced into doing anything. They weren’t given alcohol. They weren’t given drugs.”

He told the all-woman jury that he’s discovered that “women have always been smarter than me.” He complained about a comment Selander made about teens’ brains. Francis interpreted it as Selander saying that women’s brains weren’t fully formed. That led to another objection.

“I’m just gonna cover some more of what the evidence will show,” Francis said when he returned from sidebar.

He told the jurors that just because the companies had been found liable didn’t mean the jury had to award significant damages. “Give them a dollar. Stick it to them.”

Objection.

When he returned from sidebar: “The evidence will show these women were not harmed or damaged. They don’t deserve anything. Look at the evidence. How were they harmed?

“The evidence will show these girls lived the fast life and continue to. None of them ever met me, except for one, so how did I, Joe Francis, damage them?

“And these plea agreements have nothing to do with this case, they’re just being used to confuse you guys. I signed those plea agreements because I wanted it to go away, not because we were admitting any wrongdoing.

“The evidence will show that they are trying to fool you.”

He started touching back on topics he’d already hit and Smoak told him to stay focused.

“I’m keeping focused, your honor. I just don’t want to have a fast one pulled on me by these eight smart people. I believe women should be allowed to make their own decisions, good or bad, without the federal government making it for them.

“The video evidence will show that Mr. Selander is a liar and these girls are liars.”

The judge interrupted him.

“Mr. Francis, we don’t talk that way in court.”

“Oh, we don’t say liars?”

He paused, took a breath and started again.

“You have all been … misled,” he smiled at finding the word. “The facts have been misrepresented to you even in Mr. Selander’s opening statement. The evidence will show …”

He looked at the judge, “I can say they lied about their age? I can say that? OK. The evidence will show these girls lied about their age.

“The evidence will show, how do you force a girl to give you a handjob? I’d like to hear that too.”

Francis talked about the safeguards that were in place to intercept underage girls.

“They had to work really hard to get through all of the protective barriers. They were smart enough to come through and lie and get through these three protective barriers.”

Selander stood up.

“Your honor, may we strike some of this stuff. This has all been objectionable.”

Francis spun around on him, looking shocked.

“No it’s not. All of your opening has been objectionable.”

After the objection was resolved, Francis went back to his closing and his main theme, calling them liars.

“The evidence will show, don’t let them trick you. They don’t have anything to do with their clients. They’re just going to use them to try to trick you.”

“Come here Mr. Francis,” Smoak interrupted.

When he trotted back to the podium from the sidebar, Francis resumed his opening.

“The evidence will show, the plea agreements have nothing to do with the girls in this case.”

“Move to strike,” Selander’s patience was running out.

Smoak spoke to Francis and Francis returned to the podium. But the constant interruptions were disassembling an already fragmented opening statement. So Francis kept repeating subjects that he felt were important and calling everyone liars, which kept leading to objections and more interruptions.

He came back to another early theme: that he was representing himself because he believed he didn’t do anything wrong. “I’m not the person they’re saying I am.

“I’m representing myself because I can’t afford an attorney.”

“Could you instruct Mr. Francis not to say that again,” Selander said.

“It’s just the truth, your honor.”

“It’s not the truth,” Selander barked. “It just goes on and on.”

Francis said again that “the evidence will show” that he wouldn’t risk his empire, his life’s work, just to include underage girls in his films.

Objection.

The girls were not coerced.

Objection.

Girls Gone Wild does not have a business plan to target minors.

Objection.

“The evidence will show that I give to charities. I’m a generous person.”

Admonition from the bench.

“The evidence will show that they’ve taken this disgusting act and turned it into this lawsuit.”

Not proper.

“They (the girls) actually seek out Girls Gone Wild. They plot and scheme to get on these videos. All these girls are liars. We’ve all been duped by these young women.”

Smoak didn’t want him using the word “duped.” “Mr. Francis, conclude your opening statement.”

“The evidence will show that these four young girls are liars.”

“Objection. We just went through this.”

Smoak sent the jury out of the room about the same time that Francis said he was done. As artless as it was, Francis’ opening had scored points with at least one juror, a woman who became something of a leader among the other jurors.

.

Chapter 33

Juror Number 6

I
n the jury room, divisions were already forming.

“You know, ladies,” Juror 6 said, “they might think I’m a dummy, but I’m not a dummy and I’m not buying into this.”

Selander had said something in his opening that caught her attention. She heard him say, ‘Someone in this community believes that Mr. Francis should pay.’ She believed she heard him say those exact words and they would linger with her throughout the trial.