Before the arrival of home video cassette recorders in 1979 and later the advent of the internet and cell phones–before pornography became a home leisure activity–society struggled to address the issues surrounding the creation and use of pornography. Beginning, ironically enough, in 1977, Congress and statehouses around the country recognized that child pornography (now known as CSAM, child sexual abuse material) was the heroin of the genre and possession itself was criminalized. It was separated from “adult” pornography.
In 1986 the U.S. Attorney General’s Office issued a two-volume report on the history of pornography, constraints on its regulation due to the 1st amendment, an overview of the market and industry, and the role of organized crime’s involvement.
The report recounted a 1978 law enforcement investigation which determined that “traditional organized crime was substantially involved in and did essentially control much of the major pornography distribution in the United States during the years 1977 and 1978.” (Pages 14, 15 of scanned report, below). The report observes that organized crime generally involves itself in situations where the gain outweighs the risk. And at the time, pornography was big business and a low priority for law enforcement and prosecutors. The report states that it was almost impossible to be on the retail end of pornography without dealing with the mafia or some other facet of highly-organized crime.
As pointed out in Guarded by Jackals: Predators, the Public Officials Who Protected Them and Resolution of Michigan’s Most Notorious Cold Case (July 2024), “anti-smut” crusaders L. Brooks Patterson and Richard Thompson immediately set to work evaluating adult films upon taking office in the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office in 1973. (Chapter 5, Law and Order: LBP). Zero-tolerance for pornography in Oakland County. Adult pornography, that is.
The zero-tolerance is interesting, given that organized crime members on the high end of the hierarchy were also Brooks’ constituents in Oakland County. I guess it would take a while to work this all out in a mutually beneficial arrangement. But it is worth noting that the 1972 film “Deep Throat” was financed by a New York organized crime family and yielded many, many millions of dollars in profit. (Report, scan pages 21-23.). This was the kind of film these two prosecutors were focusing on after taking office in 1973, viewing films like Last Tango in Paris and Naked Came the Stranger on behalf of their vulnerable constituents.
Patterson’s second-in-command, Richard Thompson, would become the Oakland County Prosecutor in 1988 and he continued the dynamic duo’s crack down on adult video stores and pornography, correctly noting that pornography “degrades women, encourages sexual violence and incites and aids child molesters in the commission of their crimes.” Guarded by Jackals, p. 32-33, quoting the Detroit News, October 3, 1991. As the author points out, the irony of Thompson’s remarks after knowing about the films and photos contained in a suitcase owned by pedophile Chris Busch in January 1977 and letting him walk, defies adequate articulation.
Convicted pedophile Gerald Richards did not include any entries for organized crime in the handwritten “flow chart” he prepared for investigators and his 1977 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the subject of protecting children against sexual exploitation. Clearly not as dumb as he looked (I will spare you photos of the freak in this post), there is no way someone would speak about any connection between Frank Shelden’s CSAM operation and organized crime, if there was one.
Had organized crime in late-1970s Michigan determined that CSAM was one of those situations where the risk outweighed the gain? Is that a line that would be drawn in that era?
I don’t pretend to know. Other questions arise. If pedophile rings and CSAM producers/sellers from that era operated free from any organized crime “obligations,” who was involved in protecting them? People have long-speculated that a police officer was involved in the OCCK crimes. Was he providing protection/information for the participants and being compensated? Was he participating in the sex crimes or the murders?
All I know is that three cops have been mentioned in the FOIA documents: Bloomfield Township PD officer Richard McNamee, Berkley PD officer Chris Flynn and Detroit PD officer Richard Clayton. Flynn was seemingly dismissed entirely as a suspect/participant by Det. Cory Williams. Clayton and McNamee–not so much. Not at all.
Here’s where I circle back to “the mob.” A reader whispered to me that when Brooks Patterson continued his monarchical control of Oakland County, transitioning from prosecutor to county executive until the day he died, he allegedly “put out the word” that anyone who spoke of what went down in the 1970s in his office would be visited by one of his mob buddies who would hurt not only them, but members of their family.
You don’t have to believe that, of course, and it could never be proven. But don’t tell me it didn’t make your blood run cold for at least a nanosecond. Whether it was true or not, I don’t have a hard time at all with the idea of this man making such a threat.
Frankly, I don’t have a problem with the mob financing “Deep Throat.” I do have a problem with the idea of the mob protecting a public servant/thug who fucked over those four little kids and the communities they lived in.
Source:
The Detroit pornography scene 1960-1990s
https://gangster405.rssing.com/chan-45492965/article405.html?nocache=0