Hotmovies.com raided

[RawAlex]

Sort of an odd story, one of those things that makes you wonder...

From facebook (of all places):

James Hotmovies Beautiful day in the neighborhood. Raided by the Feds. At this point I expect to be back online late tonight.

http://www.xbiz.com/news/126774

Sites are currently down.

HotMovies' company headquarters were raided Wednesday morning by more than 100 law enforcement agents from the FBI and local police.

That would qualify as a pretty serious raid. No indication of the reasons at this point, 2257 would sort of be an obvious thing, but I think there is likely something much more entertaining on the table.

Anyone want to speculate?

[Toby]

It doesn't sound like a 2257 raid, something else is up.

[gonzo]

[gonzo]

Hmmmm

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/201...ion-ring-raid/

[miz_wright]

Obviously, there's a lot of speculation, but my guess is that the number of agents isn't completely insane, given the number of employees and a stab at the size of the office.

I'd also guess there is no small amount of interest around A-1's ownership of escorts.com and the phone sex operations, which I understand are quite financially successful.

Of course, it's all speculative, and it may be a number of factors all jumped together. No one will really know, because the FBI is never going to comment on ongoing investigations, and if Richard's smart, he's got his employees gagged to avoid unintentional self-incrimination.

[RawAlex]

Liz, I think you may be on the right track. The important thing to remember here is that the FBI doesn't get a search warrant without having something to go on, they didn't randomly select them out of the phone book. They have a reason to be knocking on the door.

It's going to be interesting to see if this turns into anything. Too bad for them that they happened to get hit on the day that Capri Anderson is getting all the porn related headlines in the mainstream world, otherwise they might have gotten a little coverage.

[miz_wright]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Liz, I think you may be on the right track. The important thing to remember here is that the FBI doesn't get a search warrant without having something to go on, they didn't randomly select them out of the phone book. They have a reason to be knocking on the door.

It's going to be interesting to see if this turns into anything. Too bad for them that they happened to get hit on the day that Capri Anderson is getting all the porn related headlines in the mainstream world, otherwise they might have gotten a little coverage.

Guess it depends on how you define "bad" - and for whom? The Feds? or A-1?

[tony404]

I dont think its a porn thing. Especially when they spoke about irs agents being there.

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by miz_wright

Guess it depends on how you define "bad" - and for whom? The Feds? or A-1?

I would say bad for A1, because done right, a raid like this can be played out in the media in a way that gets your URL / website out there in front of the public, 6PM news, etc. I mean, look at Capri Anderson, who appears at this point to be milking her 15 minutes of fame like there is no tomorrow, and companies are falling over themselves to give sites like TMZ more watermarked content.

Hotmovies.com could easily have called a press conference, tipped off the local news people, whatever, and gotten some decent sized coverage and exposuring, and likely made enough traffic back to make up for 8 or 9 hours of downtime.

Tony, I would tend to agree. There is pretty much always a question of income when it comes to the escort business, considering many of the girls are just not reporting their income (nor are their pimps). Depending on how those escort sites are set up, the communication could be considered solicitations for prostitution, and could also be ways for the IRS to show they girls got bookings.

There is plenty of fun to be had. Where are the lawyer types to chime in on this one?

[RawAlex]

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/201...ion-ring-raid/

"city center prostitution ring raid"

[Hell Puppy]

...so basically, another canary is coughing and gagging.

[MikeSouth]

You can bet it isn't just one thing. With the myriad of businesses under this umbrella including hotmovies, escorts.com and phone sex operations they are probably stacking up the charges to get the three rico predicate charges so they can seize all the assets

prostitution, obscenity and money laundering would do it.

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by MikeSouth

You can bet it isn't just one thing. With the myriad of businesses under this umbrella including hotmovies, escorts.com and phone sex operations they are probably stacking up the charges to get the three rico predicate charges so they can seize all the assets

prostitution, obscenity and money laundering would do it.

escorts.com, Rob Black, overcharging internally for servers and bandwidth. Done.

[softball]

HomeGrownVOD.com....is this anything to do with Homegrown Video?

[tony404]

it seems it could of been over 800 numbers
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news...cmpid=15585797

[Evil Chris]

Good thing they weren't looking for full 2257 documentation.

Did I say that out loud?