YNOT – In a move characterized by local police as “all FBI,” a reported 100 law enforcement agents swept into the Philadelphia offices of National A-1 Advertising Wednesday with federal warrants of an as-yet-undisclosed nature. The 9 a.m. ET raid resulted in the detention and release of about 120 National A-1 employees, but no arrests had been made nor indictments issued as of post time.
National A-1 is the parent company of video-on-demand giant HotMovies.com, as well as affiliate program MovieDollars. The company also operates a number of white-labeled VOD websites for adult studios and other entities, including AVN, Grooby Productions, Elegant Angel, Homegrown Video, Ed Powers and Buck Angel. All websites under the MovieDollars umbrella went dark when the raid began.
HotMovies Director of Marketing James Cybert said although he expects the search to take all day, the sites should be back online late Wednesday.
In some regards, the raid resembles similar proceedings at another Pennsylvania adult company. Warrendale-based Right Ascension Inc., parent of AdultDVDEmpire, pleaded guilty in August to a single count of obscenity after mailing four DVDs containing sadomasochistic material to undercover FBI agents in 2007. The company paid a fine of $75,000 and must serve two years probation.
