We'll just agree to disagree. I've decided to just pay the fee tomorrow. I wanna avoid the jerks like you that I'd probably end up encountering. Not to mention local news channels bothering me.

Somehow I don't see shooting porn in that neighborhood as exactly rising to the level of "wrong" :1orglaugh

I do agree that the smart decision is to just pay the fine and move on however.

run to the hills :1orglaugh

Is the car and camera even worth $900 ?

If not.. just let them have them.

4 year old basic Canon SLR and a basic 2 year old Panasonic HD camcorder. My car, a modified Mustang I bought new 10 years ago.

Yeah, again it's not about the camera and the car or $900. It's just that the more that I read about 1st amendment rights, the more pissed off I get. This is AMERICA. and in actuality, if anyone was gonna get fucked over, it should've been my "model" She was nude, I wasn't. They let her walk away with not even a slap on the wrist.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-.../2812136/posts

I AM gonna fight.

I've got all my paperwork in order. My business is legit and registered with the city. I've payed taxes for the last 9 years.

http://chic-chick.com/babyg3b.jpg

That's not even slightly ironic.

How come it seems no one in America understands what that word means? It is all Alanis' fault?

How about you get a better grasp on the english language. I'll help...
See 5.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irony?s=t

It's ironic because pretty much anything goes in Detroit. Highest crime rate in the country.

L.A. and Miami are well known to not tolerate crimes such as prostitution. There are sheriffs on every corner in L.A. and Miami. I can go days without seeing an officer in Detroit however It's the place I get cited.

You're shooting in a public area. IE an area that may not be visited but not private property. They got you bang to rights.

The lawyer is advising you to spend money with him. It's like asking Aaron or Madalton if you should hire them to shoot porn. :winkwink:

Pay the fine as Aaron says. You broke the law and it's not the first time, your whole site will be used against you in a court of law at $1,000 an hour. Including postponements and hours waiting in the halls waiting to be called in front of the judge.

I appreciate the input from everyone. But you're all missing the point. I may have been wrong for shooting in public, however I didn't get cited for that. That would've simply been a $100 ticket. Their gripe is that the woman I was shooting works as a hooker, not that she was naked in public.

My point is I don't care what the women I deal with do in their own time. When they're with me, it's to be photographed for my websites. If you don't see me pick them up on the corner in my car, you have no right to assume I'm a john when you see us together.

Your black and you live in the states, Good luck with the cops :thumbsup

Yeah, and my president is black too.

Aww, bless you for trying!

"Yeah, it's ironic that I never have a problem in L.A. or Miami. But in my hometown of Detroit it seems to be a problem."

It's not ironic at all that you don't have a problem in LA or Miami but you do in your hometown.

The level of crime in an area doesn't make it ironic that you got busted committing a crime.

"A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used; usually taking the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt."

If you need any help with the long words there, just holla.

/me ruffles your hair

I like your tranny website looks real and nasty I love it :)

No, I don't need any help, thanks for the offer but I'll help you once again

Situational irony
This is a relatively modern use of the term, and describes a discrepancy between the expected result and actual results in a certain situation.
For example:
When John Hinckley attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, all of his shots initially missed the President; however, a bullet ricocheted off the bullet-proof Presidential limousine and struck Reagan in the chest. Thus, a vehicle made to protect the President from gunfire was partially responsible for his being shot.

Thanks, I'm a real nasty dude :)

This is hilarious dude.
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.....

Best of luck to you man, I say just pay the fine and chalk it up to experience. If you get in front of a judge not only will u most likely spend more in lawyer fees but you might wind up with extra charges.

I'm not missing the point at all. What I am doing is dismissing the point to focus on the bigger picture. Like Paul said, they will go through your site with a fine toothed comb and you could very easily end up with far bigger problems than the simple ticket and impound you are facing now.

Lets say you go the legal route and you get your stuff back in a couple of months. Congrats to you. Now what about when they charge you for the public sex acts on your site? Or, they see all the known hookers you are banging and then use that to show the court what you were really up to? How many jury members do you think will side with you once the prosecution shows you "exploiting" crack whores?

As you said above, "Thanks, I'm a real nasty dude" which could potentially bring obscenity laws into the mix.

Nobody in their right mind would pursue this. But then again, nobody in their right mind would stick their dick in any of that nastiness that's on your site. Any attorney worth a damn would have told you not to publicly post about it. I'm beginning to wonder if any of this really happened or if this is a bullshit thread for attention. Either way, I'm out.

Good luck.

I guess you guys don't have much faith in the legal system we have in the U.S. No one is going to go through my LEGAL website. The only issue at hand is what the title of the thread says, PROSTITUTION vs. PORNOGRAPHY besides, our judges in Detroit are pretty cool.
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news...me-20120423-dk

too bad this will probably be your judge

http://i.imgur.com/MvHNa.jpg

and before you know it you're doing two years for something else ........... you win the prize.

I didn't read all the responses, but don't waste your time, pay to get your car/camera's back and move on. if you turn it into a legal battle you will regreat it.... :2 cents:

I beg to differ.

Being busted in Detroit is as situationally ironic as Alanis' song is accurate.

But don't feel bad, I don't think I've met a single American who can use the word properly. It's your education system letting you down opposed to your own inherent stupidity.

Feel bad? Not at all. I'm proud of my education. I love America. The system works. You're just wrong. I'm not mad at you though. Have a good day! I'm actually on my way to Canada right now.
http://foulfowl.net/IMG1255.jpg

But I guess thats not IRONIC either is it?

I think you answered your own question. Yes you can win, it'll cost you more to win than to give in and roll with it though.

I'd say if it involved a criminal record or such, fight it. otherwise, do the math and let that decide your answer. Whoop De Do about proving a point no one will know about. The cops don't care if you win or not, nor should you care about proving something to some pig you'll never see again and won't get through to anyway.

I would fight it, but a laywer for $1,000 is a joke. You get what you pay for. For you guys saying he will get into even more trouble obviously have no clue about the Detroit legal system. Last time I was in a Detroit courtroom there was people selling heroine and crack getting a slap on the wrist. Out of about 20 different guys only one of them had a suit on and a lawyer with him and he was busted for selling drugs. The judge let him off with some kind of class and said "I appreciate that you mean business and come here dressed for the occasion"

No. Not even slightly.

If you were shooting a naked cop and got busted, *that* would be ironic.

I can draw you a picture if you are still struggling?

I'm pretty sure that's the same judge I just posted about.

I'm glad I don't live where you live, jesus - looks like a war field.

the bottom line is your camera gear and whatever content you have on them is gone, and you have the opportunity to get it back. do this first, before waging any other proxy wars. the content on your cameras, if not the cameras themselves are surely at least worth a G so get them back, THEN do whatever. you do not want LEO with access to your content, even if it is all legal, its a pandoras box. And its money lost from what you could have published in the meantime. About 2 yrs ago I was green/newbie enough to fly with a laptop and 2 external HDs... 4 TB of content much of which was unpublished/unedited. It ain't coming back, neither is the money I spent on filming. Get your shit back FIRST before doing anything thats all I gotta say, and best of luck to you. welcome to the club

http://www.toticos.com/205619_101501..._6705367_n.jpg
http://www.toticos.com/215365_101501..._7752147_n.jpg

http://www.toticos.com/isms.html

as someone who always used to fight that shit based on principle, PLEASE take my advise. Don't do it. Pay the fine and move on. I lost everything cause of it. I started to fight the cops when I should have just paid them off, in the end they ruined me. Sure it was wrong and I should have fought the good fight but the real world doesn't work like that. The system is designed to protect the cops and you're not in an industry that you can go public with and get much support for.

Pay the fine and move on. You WILL be much better off if you do that.

interesting replies on here

Yeah, it is a war field but I live far enough away from it.

Everything on the camera except what I was shooting had already been saved. I hadn't even paid the girl I was filming. Believe it or not, I was confiscated before and the officers claimed they had lost my camera then. I made them replace it but yeah, lost content. So I learned to back up everything right after shooting it.

So no one else would fight this violation but me. Sad. I know this board has people from all over the world on it, But I live in the U.S.A. and I know my rights. They're worth fighting for. I'll keep everyone posted.

You're hearing from a lot of people who HAVE fought it before, spent 10's of thousands on lawyers if not hundreds of thousands on lawyers... it's not worth it. Yes you will win, no one will care. It will change nothing and you'll be out your legal fees, HUGE time and massive emotional energy. NOT WORTH IT.

Pay the fine and move on.

You can fight it but yer gonna lose.

This isnt about pornography or prostitution really its about lewd in public, your only hope is to get off on a technicality.

As someone who has shot in public....If ya can't do the time dont do the crime....

good luck to you!
I love Mustang!

Guessing a city ticket and not a criminal arrest, right?

http://library.municode.com/index.aspx?clientId=10649

versus

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/%28S%2...931-XLVIII.pdf

You're being pretty tight-lipped about exactly what you are charged with, and I don't know if you got caught red handed (insert any other appropriate anatomical part) in POV flagrante delicto, or whether you were just standing there taking pictures of her alone involved in nudity or sexual conduct, but it sounds like you got a ticket under 38-9-4 or 38-9-5 and both of them implicate prostitution - either a solicitation in a public place (did you negotiate the deal in a public place?) - or just engaging her for prostitution.

It sounds like the charge is under that city ordinance. You've got a chance to establish that filming adult content in Michigan is not prostitution and all you're risking to establish that is a ticket? That you plan to pay anyway? If Hal Freeman, facing a felony, had made a similar decision, the right to create sexually explicit content in California never would have been established. Shame on you.

The definition of "public place" under the ordinance seems to hinge on the probability that the public would see this, _not the police_. How likely was it that the public would see it? Isn't it true that the whole reason you picked this place was because of its seclusion? These kinds of statutes are designed to protect the public from seeing disturbing things like the court said in my state in People v. Haven. That's a second way of getting your property back.

Are you basically risking next to nothing by fighting it? Are there some odds that the prosecutor will back off once he sees that if you win, the "Open for Porn Business" sign will go up on I-94 to welcome the whole midwest to set up studios?

Look, I don't know all the facts, and I haven't even seen the ticket, but it all looks pretty chickenshit for you to plead out - on the basis of what you've posted.

:upsidedow

Wow! You're good. Hit it right on the nail. You probably know that it's not as serious as people on this board are making it out to be. Especially in Michigan. I'm not fighting the system, I'm just gonna prove that I was taking photos and video. Not soliciting a prostitute. I'll probably even get a statement from the woman. In the past I've always just settled because I was in the wrong for soliciting undercover cops. This time I don't believe I was wrong because I was filming a woman that I've filmed many times previously. There was no sexual activity taking place and money was not exchanged. The officers just happen to be patrolling the bad area we were in. Kind of hate I brought this up at this point because I'm sure it looks like I'm worried about the incident when in actuality I'm not. Below is my second offense way back in 1996. Back then they'd arrest you and you'd get a $100 ticket. Now they seize your vehicle. http://foulfowl.net/protick.jpg

This is exactly what happen http://foulfowl.com/lisa2012.wmv just a different chick in a different location and instead of a security guard it was actually police officers that rolled up on us. I have everything on video :) Any of the women I shoot will vouch for what took place. Really. it's NOT PROSTITUTION, it's pornography.

It looks like they must establish prostitution in order to sustain their burden.

But it was not prostitution, it was the creation of video for publication. http://www.xxxlaw.com/articles/porno....and.porn.html

They must also establish that it was open to public view. It was not. It was a secluded, desolate, seldom-visited wasteland, as much as any remote part of any National Monument in the states out West that are square. The purpose of the law was to protect the public from shock. There was no public to protect there.

Finally, they are more afraid of making Detroit a Porn Free Fire Zone than you are of being found liable on the ticket. And if they try to upgrade the charges to a felony after such a defense is announced, they will have a devil of a time trying to convince a judge that retribution for defense was not the motive.

And yes, you also hit it on the head. I am good. Not my first rodeo.

Thread should end right here :)

My attitude is ALWAYS fight forfeitures. When they can take your shit without ever charging you for a crime they are nothing more than legal thieves and the more people that just let it happen fuel it on. Thanks Ronald Fucking Reagan.

listen to Joe....I thought you were charged with lewd in public.

the cops are taking a big chance charging you here if they lose it can become legal to shoot in Michigan if I read that correctly

OK then, we know more. Do your films include you filming paying the prostitutes?

Engage a good lawyer and go for it. I still advise paying the $900. You win, the police have marked your card and will be watching.

Max Hardcore won the first time around. :Oh crap

He's already on their list. That isn't going away.

It's not like they will delete the digital data concerning this ticket if he pleads out. Pleading out doesn't make it better, it makes matters worse.

When he fights back and wins, he grows in the respect they have for him and it deters horseshit harassment down the road.

I would just pay them and move on.