After Hours Sex Shop

Jurors in the case of After Hours Video convicted store owner Rick Krial and the After Hours Video store on misdemeanor charges of selling an obscene item. Krial was fined $1,000 and the store was fined $1,500.

In response to a defense motion the judge agreed that the guilty verdicts will not be entered for 60 days while post-trial motions are filed. An appeal is expected.

Krial and the store were found not guilty on a second charge of obscenity, and store employee Tinsley Embrey was found not guilty on two misdemeanor charges of obscenity.

The misdemeanor convictions may lead to prosecutions on felony obscenity charges that were handed down along with the misdemeanor counts.

Update: Bad Evidence

18th October 2008. Based on article from xbiz.com

Basing their argument on bad evidence and bad statements introduced during the trial of After Hours Video storeowner Rick Krial, defense attorneys have filed motions asking to have the two guilty verdicts set aside.

The much ballyhooed trial of Rick Krial, owner of After Hours Video on Springhill Road, begins this morning in Staunton Circuit Court, almost a year to the day Staunton Prosecutor Raymond C. Robertson vowed at a press conference to keep pornography out of Staunton's stores.

In October, the same month After Hours Video opened for business, undercover agents from the Staunton and Waynesboro police departments, along with plainclothes officers from the Virginia State Police, acted as customers and purchased a dozen DVDs from the Springhill Road store. Weeks later, a special Staunton grand jury convened and charged Krial and his company, LSP of Virginia, with 16 felonies and eight misdemeanor charges of obscenity.

In January, an employee at After Hours Video, Tinsley W. Embrey, also was charged with 10 counts of obscenity, four of them misdemeanor charges.

This week's scheduled four-day trial concerns only the misdemeanor charges against Krial, his company and Embrey. The Commonwealth can proceed with the felony charges only if it garners convictions on the misdemeanors.

The landmark United States Supreme Court case of Miller v. California in 1973 established a standard three-part legal definition of obscenity that must be met: Do applied community standards find that the material appeals to the prurient interest; is it patently offensive, sexual conduct defined by state law; and does the work, taken as a whole, lack serious literal, artistic, political or scientific value? Those are questions that must be answered by the jury.

The court case will feature a number of legal heavy hitters, Paul Cambria Jr and Louis Sirkin.

Robertson will be assisted by Matthew Buzzelli, an obscenity attorney with the United States Department of Justice.

Jury selection for the case could take up to two days. A misdemeanor trial only requires seven jurors.

In December, the Hook reported on the case of Rick Krial, the owner of Staunton adult video store After Hours Video who faces eight felony obscenity counts after undercover police purchased 10 DVDs from his establishment. Now, the cashier who sold police those DVDs has also been charged.

Staunton Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Robertson indicted Tinsley Embrey on six felony and four misdemeanor counts. A date for pretrial motions has been set for March 6 at 8:30am, three weeks after Krial's own trial opens at 1pm on the appropriate date of February 14.

The prosecutor told the Staunton News Leader that he charged the cashier because He knew what he was selling. The article also states that Krial will foot the legal bill for Embrey.

In the obscenity cases we've done, I don't recall any of the clerical staff ever being charged, says Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. If you target the owner of the store, then the store goes away. If you target an employee who has little to no decision-making power over what items are for sale, it just means more work for the prosecution to achieve the same goal.

Update: Trial

11th March 2008

Krial and his company, LSP of Virginia, will face two initial misdemeanor counts of selling obscenity at a June 17 trial. Krial's employee, Tinsley W. Embrey, also will face two misdemeanor counts of selling obscenity at that time.

While grand juries indicted the defendants on additional felony counts of obscenity, these charges will be left for future trial dates.

Update: Defence Rejected

2nd June 2008

A motion to dismiss obscenity charges against a Staunton adult video store owner and one of his employees on constitutional grounds was denied at a hearing Wednesday morning in Staunton Circuit Court. The case is scheduled to proceed to trial Aug. 12.