Multimillionaire and professional creep Joe Francis, who earns an estimated $29 million a year from his series of "Girls Gone Wild" videos, in which your daughters appear partially naked during spring break, was ordered to jail this week after a federal judge held him in contempt. Francis, who has been sued by seven girls who allegedly went wild while they were minors, was held in contempt last week after the judge found he failed to participate in settlement negotiations in good faith. Or at least that's what I interpret "shouting obscenities and threatening the women" to mean.
U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak had ordered Francis to jail on Saturday but suspended that order when attorneys reported that a settlement agreement had been reached. But they reported this week that Francis had unilaterally changed the conditions of the agreement, which is often frowned upon by other parties to an agreement. That led Judge Smoak to find Francis re-contemptible and to issue a warrant for his arrest, saying he had been "snookered." "He may have snookered us and gotten out Saturday," said the judge, "but he's coming back." (Snookering any federal employee now carries severe penalties as a result of the amended Patriot Act.)
Francis went wild at the news, saying it was a case of "a judge gone wild." He did not say whether he planned to release any "Judges Gone Wild" videos (let's hope not), but he did defy the judge's order, saying he would not turn himself in voluntarily to U.S. marshals. That should lead to a standoff that will last for between 3-5 seconds. Attorneys for Francis have appealed the contempt order, an appeal that will probably last about as long as the standoff, but Judge Smoak has already denied their request to stay enforcement of the order pending appeal.
If you want to learn more about "Girls Gone Wild," you'll have to do some research since most news outlets do not say much more about it than I did above, for the same reasons -- observing some minimal standards of decency and morality. The exception: FOX News, which was the only website of those I read that featured the cover of a "Girls Gone Wild" DVD in the story.
