Larry Flynt will remove all sexually explicit videos from his Cincinnati store

May 12, 1999
Web posted at: 12:40 p.m. EDT (1640 GMT)

In this story: $10,000 fine RELATED STORIES, SITES

CINCINNATI (CNN) -- Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt avoided a trial -- and possible jail term -- on obscenity charges by agreeing to a plea bargain deal with prosecutors Wednesday.

Flynt agreed to remove all sexually explicit videos from Hustler News & Gifts, a Cincinnati store managed by his brother, Jimmy.

In return, prosecutors are letting the Flynts substitute their corporation for themselves, on two counts of pandering obscenity.

The prosecution dropped 13 other charges stemming from the illegal sale in 1997 of an explicit video to a 14-year-old boy.

The video, "Jet Striker Underground," is among those that will be removed from the store.

The Flynt brothers' plea bargain came during the trial's jury selection phase

Larry Flynt, who now lives in Los Angeles, and his brother could each have received 24 years in prison and been fined $65,000.

Instead, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Patrick Dinkelacker levied a total fine of $10,000 -- $5,000 each, on two counts of pandering obscenity -- on Larry Flynt's Hustler Corporation.

The Flynts did not address the court.

The admission of guilt, entered by a defense lawyer, came while the trial was in its third day of jury selection.

Because of the plea bargain, there will be no trial.

Larry Flynt had opened the store because he was angry that obscenity crackdowns in the city made Hustler magazine barely available.

He was convicted in 1977 of pandering obscenity for selling Hustler magazine in Cincinnati, and hoped that a new trial in the same city would show that community standards for obscenity had changed.

Flynt served six days of a 7-to-25-year sentence for the 1977 conviction before being released pending appeal. The conviction was overturned in 1979.

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