Jury Reaches Verdict in After Hours Obscenity Trial
Staunton adult store, owner Rick Krial guilty on one misdemeanor charge
By: David Sullivan
Posted: 08/15/2008
STAUNTON, Va. - The jury in the After Hours Video obscenity case convicted the store and owner Rick Krial on one misdemeanor charge of selling an obscene item.
Krial and the store were found not guilty on a second charge of obscenity. Store employee Tinsley Embrey, 28, was found not guilty on two charges of obscenity.
Krial will serve no jail time. He was sentenced and fined $1,000. His store also was fined $1,500.
The four-day trial centered on the sale of two adult DVDs to undercover police officers shortly after the adult video store opened on Springhill Road in Staunton in October. The jury of four men and three women watched the movies in question - Sugar Britches and City Girls Extreme Gang Bang - yesterday in court.
City Girls Extreme Gang Bang led to the obscenity conviction. Sugar Britches was not found obscene by the jury. Jurors deliberated for one hour and 44 minutes before returning the verdict.
"When we talked to the jurors, they said basically that the multiple partners is where they drew the line," Krial's attorney Paul Cambria told AVN. "One was a gang bang and one was just one [scene] after another...Same sex acts, same stuff, but they drew the line at multiple partners. I never had one where the material was that close in what it had content-wise where they split the baby."
On a motion from defense attorney Tate Love, who represented After Hours Video, Circuit Judge Thomas H. Wood will refrain from entering the guilty verdicts against Krial and his store for 60 days while post-trial motions are filed.
An appeal in the case is expected.
