Obscenity verdict appealed

The “witch hunt” against After Hours Video owner Rick Krial lead to an improper trial, defense attorneys said in an appeal filed in Staunton Circuit Court Tuesday.

Asking that two guilty verdicts be set aside, attorneys said “numerous improper statements” made by prosecutors during trial were “intended to inflame the passions and prejudices of the jurors.”

A jury found Krial and his company guilty of two counts of misdemeanor obscenity in August, nearly one year after undercover police officers purchased sexually explicit DVDs from the store. Krial received a $1,000 fine and no jail time, The store received a $1,500 fine. The defense team asked Circuit Court Judge Thomas H. Wood for and was granted a motion to set aside the verdict and not enter a judgment for 60 days.

Defense attorneys repeatedly called for mistrial during the four-day trial.

The motion, filed by attorney Tate C. Love, said prosecutors provided prejudicial evidence, should not have introduced evidence about the age of an actress in one of the adult films and violated Krial’s right to confront witnesses.

Citing numerous cases throughout the 29-page appeal, defense attorneys took issue with prosecutors’ admonishments to not allow Staunton to become like other places. As an example, attorneys cited a portion of Robertson’s closing statement: “You’ve never seen anything immoral in Staunton until this store came in here.”

The appeal also argues prosecutors improperly asked jurors to imagine their feelings if their children and grandchildren viewed the videos in question.

“The standard in this case is not what is suitable for children,” Judge Thomas H. Wood wrote before the trial, according to a document included in the appeal.

The defense also took issue with prosecutors’ statements about the possibility of children seeing the films, which Wood also wrote about before trial.

Jurors decided that a video depicting intercourse between a male and female was not obscene, but drew the line at one depicting sex with multiple partners. Krial was found guilty of one charge of obscenity in connection with the sale of “City Girls Extreme Gangbang.” Tinsley W. Embrey, a store employee, was found not guilty on the same charge. The jury decided another video, “Sugar Britches,” was not obscene.