Local News in Brief : Fine for Mailed Porn Ad

A Los Angeles businessman who sent unsolicited ads for pornographic videos to a Utah woman has been fined $17,500 in Salt Lake City following his guilty plea in the first such case in the nation, federal prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge David K. Winder also sentenced Harold W. Anderson to five years in prison but suspended the sentence to five years’ probation and ordered him to perform 500 hours of community service during the next 36 months.

Anderson pleaded guilty Oct. 1 to one count of mailing unsolicited pornographic materials to a Salt Lake City woman, who complained to U.S. Postal Service officials.

At his pleading, Anderson said, “I don’t think this is obscene in Los Angeles, but it would be obscene in Utah.”

Brent Ward, U.S. attorney for Utah, said the government ordered one of the Anderson’s videos, “Taught to Obey II.” He described it as an “explicit, sadomasochistic film.”

But defense attorney Jerome Mooney characterized Anderson as “strictly small-time.”