As for the charges of obscenity, that was an idea passed on to the sheriff’s department from the local village attorney, Anthony Nettis. Once it became clear that Mike wasn’t guilty of photographing underage girls, the issue of obscenity was indeed considered.As for the charges of obscenity, that was an idea passed on to the sheriff’s department from the local village attorney, Anthony Nettis. Once it became clear that Mike wasn’t guilty of photographing underage girls, the issue of obscenity was indeed considered. An Illinois grand jury would eventually be asked to decide if Mike should be tried on charges of obscenity based on several explicit BDSM images that were pulled from his Web site; while the facts that were presented to the grand jury are confidential, and its understanding of obscenity law unknown, it was the grand jury’s ultimate decision that the state should proceed with charges of obscenity against Mike, as well as charges of possessing child pornography.

“We started negotiating immediately with the state’s attorney Dan Regna,” says Obenberger. “Dan Regna is actually a decent guy. I like him on a personal level … so we always had a good relationship through the whole course of the thing.”

It would eventually turn out that law enforcement had made a number of mistakes in their investigation of Mike and his business. Proving to be a pivotal issue in Mike’s subsequent court hearings, law enforcement officers used questionable and overly broad methods in obtaining and carrying out the search warrant.

In order to obtain a search warrant, a law enforcement investigator took several pictures of legal-aged nude models off of Mike’s Web site (not to be confused with the thumbnail images that would later be found) and took them to a local emergency room doctor and asked for a professional opinion as to the age of the girls in the pictures. The physician would later admit that he recommended to the investigator that he simply go to Mike Jones and ask him about the age of the girls in question. When the investigator insisted the doctor be the judge, the physician made a guess based on the size of the models’ breasts and their lack of pubic hair (the girls had shaved). His verdict was that one model was between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, and the other was between the ages of fifteen and eighteen.

The doctor’s flawed age estimate proved to be enough for investigators to get a search warrant. “They got a very broad warrant authorizing them to take everything,” says Obenberger. “There’s nothing identified particularly, not even these two pictures.”

According to Regna, the investigation was never about politics, but was always about taking accusations of child porn seriously. Regna says that the grand jury could have decided that cause did not exist to pursue Mike for any charges, and he added that law enforcement never charged him up front with a crime before presenting the matter to the grand jury for its consideration. Regna claims that law enforcement was never interested in shutting Mike down, per se, but rather they were interested in being certain that a crime was not taking place.

To Jones, the motives of the law enforcement investigators were clearly political in nature. “The prosecution is trying to make this look like it was a standard investigation and that there was no politics involved, which is a pile of horse shit,” says Jones. “They came out in March on a call from [the local village resident], they found nothing. They weren’t doing anything until [the individual] and the village called again and started putting pressure on, and it was an election year. This thing was political as all hell.”

Asked why law enforcement didn’t just ask Mike for proof that the disputed models were of legal age when the pictures were shot, Regna claims that law enforcement had to be wary of the possibility that any existing evidence potentially stored at Mike’s home or business could have been destroyed were Mike alerted to the investigation.

Mike’s court battle has lasted for three and a half years, an awful long time to live in fear of a possible negative outcome in court. Fortunately for Mike Jones, the judge assigned to his case was fair and willing to listen to the facts of the case and abide strictly by the letter of the law.

“The judge was very fair,” says Jones. “She did her job. She upheld the law … she was always very straight and very fair.”

After several procedural hurdles, Mike’s attorneys filed a motion with the court to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the broad search warrant. “Reed Lee [Obenberger’s associate] and I collaborated on the motion to suppress itself, and the hearing I did most of it, [Lee] cross-examined the forensic computer analyst, and then Reed substantially wrote the brief after the hearing,” explains Obenberger.

Last week the motion to suppress was granted in court, leaving the prosecution without any of the evidence it had obtained through the search of Mike’s home and studio. That of course included the recovered thumbnail images that were the basis of the child pornography charges. Obenberger is optimistic that this latest development will result in the prosecution dropping its case against Mike. “I think they see what kind of case this is,” says Obenberger. “I expect this will probably be the end of the case, but we’ll know in thirty days.”

Mike Jones is also optimistic that the end of his nightmare ordeal is finally coming to an end. “I am optimistic that it’s over,” says Jones. “I don’t know what the state has to gain. The state has already acknowledged that they know that I never produced any of these images.”

Regna was asked directly if the court’s decision would mean an end of Mike’s case, but he was not yet prepared to answer that definitively. Regna said only that the prosecution was still considering all of the possibilities, and that a decision would be made soon as to the fate of the case.

Having sold CDbabes.com in December of last year, Mike now finds himself trying to pick up the pieces and start over. He and his family moved out of Greenwood, the damage having already been done, but Mike hasn’t shied away from the adult industry. Mike now finds himself shooting custom exclusive content for his clients, doing magazine layouts, and promoting his new Web site, PhotoStudio18.com.

Will the adult industry move on and support Mike and his content? Some already have.

“It’s a matter of what the other people in the industry really believe,” explains Jones. “From day one when we started on the Internet, we always reported child pornography. In the days prior to the ASACP, we used to call the ISPs directly, we used to trace and find out where the site was being hosted from and immediately notify the ISP that they had child pornography on their system. As the ASACP evolved and we became involved with them we made all of our reports through the ASACP.”

“He’s not a child pornographer, and anyone who knew him knew he wasn’t,” said Obenberger. “He was devastated and destroyed by [the charges].”

According to Obenberger, Mike Jones’s case provides a number of lessons for other industry professionals to remember.

“We don’t leave it to the unconstrained judgment of police officers to determine what is obscene, and by seizing something, close down its expression,” says Obenberger. Pointing out that an officer does have the right to seize contraband when he sees it, such as illegal drugs, Obenberger stressed that officers don’t have that same power when dealing with expressive materials like photographs that the officer feels might be obscene. “Because we value freedom of expression and society’s right to receive the message as much as we do, [a police officer] has to go in front of a judge and tell the judge what he saw.” According to Obenberger, the search warrant that law enforcement executed was so broad that it amounted to nothing more than a fishing expedition – a fact that was directly responsible for the suppression of all evidence obtained through the illegal raid. “She held that Mike’s business was an active, expressive enterprise publishing images, video, and Web sites to the Internet, and so the scope and scale of the seizure impeded ongoing, presumptively protected expression in a manner that did violence to the Constitution.”

For adult Webmasters, the story of Mike Jones serves both as a cautionary tale, and, if charges are officially dropped as expected, as an inspirational tale. It’s a cautionary tale because it warns adult Webmasters that the adult industry brings legal risks. Anyone who works in the adult entertainment business needs to be aware of his or her legal risks prior to publishing adult works in any public medium. Having a business relationship with a capable adult industry attorney is vital. Webmasters need to keep impeccable records documenting the age of any models appearing in any sexually explicit images that they might publish. Even accidents and misunderstandings can lead to charges of child porn, an accusation that can destroy an individual’s business and reputation.

The story of Mike Jones is an optimistic tale because Mike Jones fought back – he defended himself, and won an important court decision last week. Obenberger and his associate Lee stood steadfast by Mike’s side and forced the court to see reason. The case has so far involved hundreds of hours of legal work; despite Mike’s tough financial times, Obenberger and Lee vowed not to abandon Mike for any financial reasons. It’s also an optimistic tale because it appears now that the justice system ultimately will produce the proper result, and good will indeed triumph over injustice – even if the cost of this triumph was unforgivably high.

After three and a half years of legal proceedings, one can only imagine what it must have been like for Mike Jones and his family. Sleepless nights, mounting bills, and an uncertain future – even the possibility of a jail sentence for Mike and a resulting forced separation from his wife and family. Mike Jones never should have been put through the ordeal that he was, but his experience should stay on the minds of adult Webmasters as a reminder that freedom is not to be taken for granted – it’s a prize that must be fought for, and it is awarded only to those who have the courage to demand it, even in the face of daunting oppression.

Connor Young is Editor in Chief of YNOT News and TheAdultWebmaster.com (TAW).