http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A60944As reported on another thread, US attorney for Western PA. Mary Beth Buchanan has quit her post. That is normal - the spots are usually replaced by Dems. However, the rumors are that she wants to run for Congress against Dem Jason Altmire.
Buchanan became famous by following orders from Ashcroft to go after pornography and bongs sold over the internet. She prosecuted a maker of pornographic movies based in California, after she got them to mail a film to western PA. They then could charge the filmmaker with violating the local community standards of western PA. That filmmaker then responded by making a porno film about Federal prosecutors.
She also was featured in the movie AKA Tommy Chong for prosecuting Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong fame because his son was selling custom-made glass bongs. A staff-person hassled Chong's company for a month to try to get them mail to bongs to Pa. The company kept refusing because they knew it was against PA. law. Then the guy said he would come to Calif. to pick them up. Then he cancelled out. Finally, to get the order out of their store, they shipped it, and were prosecuted.
Chong was told he was prosecuted because decades earlier he had movies that mocked law enforcement efforts against drugs.
Excerpt from the above article:
"There is no national standard for whether material is obscene: A multi-part legal test requires a judge or jury to determine whether the material has political or literary merit, and whether it appeals to "prurient interest" according to community standards. For an online pornographer, the problem is that community standards could be stricter in Pittsburgh than in California. "It's called forum-shopping," says Bob Richards, co-director of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment at Penn State University. "You look for a community where you have a willing U.S. attorney and a good cross-section of people to pull a favorable jury from.
Forum-shopping, Richards says, gives the government an advantage even in cases where community standards aren't an issue. If the defendants are from California, they still have to travel to the jurisdiction, or at least have their attorneys do so. "It's a considerable drain on your resources, and eventually you're forced to give in," Richards says.
Chong was the crown jewel in Operation Pipe Dreams, a sting operation meant to crack down on drug paraphernalia such as pipes and bongs. Buchanan acknowledged to reporters that Chong "wasn't the biggest supplier of such products: He was a relatively new player." But because of his movie celebrity, "he had the ability to market products like no other."
Levenson says the case against his client was "ridiculous and ill-conceived." Chong, he says, pled guilty to save his wife and son from convictions and potential prison time. Chong served nine months in federal prison and one year on probation; Levenson says Chong is "the only first-time defendant in any of these cases to get prison time." Chong wrote."
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