United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

1100 Commerce St., 3rd Fl.
Dallas, Texas 75242-1699

Telephone (214) 659-8600
Fax (214) 767-0978

TWO MEN SENTENCED TO FEDERAL PRISON
ON OBSCENITY CONVICTION

Defendants Sold Rape/Torture Videos on Internet

Clarence Thomas Gartman, age 35, and his brother-in-law, former Houston Police Officer, Brent Alan McDowell, age 37, were sentenced today in Dallas, announced Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher for the Criminal Division and United States Attorney Richard B. Roper. The Honorable Barefoot Sanders, United States Senior District Judge, sentenced Gartman to 34 months in prison and McDowell to 30 months in prison. Both Gartman and McDowell were ordered to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on August 24, 2006.

Following a five-day jury trial in Dallas in March 2006, Clarence Thomas Gartman and Brent Alan McDowell were each found guilty of one count of Mailing Obscene Material and Aiding and Abetting and Clarence Thomas Gartman was found guilty of an additional count of Conspiracy to Mail Obscene Material.

U.S. Attorney Roper said, “As shown in the sentences imposed today by Judge Sanders, law enforcement will bring to justice those who engage in the commercial distribution of obscene materials.”

The case was initially investigated by the Dallas Police Department after they received a tip from a German citizen who told them that a website selling rape videos was registered to a Garry Ragsdale. At that time, Garry Ragsdale was a Dallas Police Department officer. The Dallas Police Department Vice Squad requested assistance, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service joined with the Dallas Police Department in the investigation which resulted in the federal charges. Gartman and McDowell’s activities were discovered while investigating the web site activities of Garry Layne Ragsdale and his wife, Tamara Michelle Ragsdale. Gartman and the Ragsdales were partners in a business distributing obscene videos until a dispute arose between them, in early 1998, which dissolved the partnership. The Ragsdales were convicted in federal court in Dallas on Oct. 23, 2003, on obscenity charges related to the obscene video business they conducted after their partnership with Gartman ended. On March 5, 2004, U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater sentenced Garry Ragsdale to 33 months in prison and Tamara Ragsdale to 30 months in prison. Their convictions were upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last year.

The government provided evidence at trial that beginning in 1998, Gartman and McDowell maintained a web site on the Internet, “forbiddenvideos.com.” The web site was used to advertise and distribute obscene videos by VHS cassettes, CDs, and streaming video, depicting rape scenes, sexual torture and other explicit sex acts. The obscene videos ordered from the web site were initially sent by U.S. mail from locations within the Northern District of Texas. Later, the defendants also distributed the obscene videos through a collection of web sites managed from the Northern District and elsewhere, which enabled customers in the United States, and throughout the world, to download obscene digital video images or to view digital streaming video. Customers of the forbiddenvideos.com web site, or related web sites, would place orders and pay for the obscene material with a credit card.

Obscenity has a three-part definition under U.S. law. To find a matter “obscene,” the jury was required to apply contemporary community standards to satisfy a three-part test: (1) that the work as a whole is an appeal predominantly to prurient interest; (2) that it depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and (3) that the material, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. An appeal to “prurient” interest is an appeal to a morbid, degrading, and unhealthy interest in sex, as distinguished from a mere candid interest in sex. This three-part test is a result of rulings by the United States Supreme Court in 1973 and 1976.

U. S. Attorney Roper praised the investigative efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Dallas Police Department Vice Squad. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Linda C. Groves and DOJ Obscenity Prosecution Task Force Trial Attorney Richard D. Green.

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