The millionaire founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video franchise said he was treated pretty darn badly at the Grady County Jail while being held there on a federal tax evasion complaint, according to a recent story in The (Chickasha) Express-Star newspaper.
Attorneys for Joe Francis, 34, who is now jailed in Reno, Nev., awaiting trail next year, claim the Oklahoma jailers tortured him during his two-week stay in Grady County.
According to an exhaustive investigation by Chicken-Fried News' intern, Bucky, the "Girls Gone Wild" videos usually feature college-age, scantily clad women on spring break or some such, being enticed to expose certain parts of their anatomy, dancing, kissing and other like behavior, usually at the coaxing of the camera operator.
Anyway, Francis subsequently made a few bazillion off these videos, but the pastime became opprobrium for him after his operation photographed two 17-year-olds in a hotel shower, the story states. Francis said he was not present and that the girls lied about their ages to his cameraman. The Internal Revenue Service became interested in his proceeds, according to the story. And thus, he found himself in Grady County Jail.
So, according to the story, attorneys for Francis said his time there was less than titillating. They allege he was denied blankets, medication, clothing, social visits and that items he'd purchased from the jail commissary were taken from him.
According to his attorneys, as Francis was to be transported to Reno, Grady County guards made him dispose of his commissary products for the move. Then " they reneged on the move.
"While waiting in line to be transported to a bus, one of the guards instructed him to step out of the line. He was told that he would be 'going nowhere' and ordered back to his cell. Francis had already given his entire commissary away and had no bedding or blankets. The commissary could not be replaced for days," his attorneys wrote in a filing.
"Mr. Francis again and again begged for a blanket. It was then that guards threatened to strip him and strap him naked to a chair, with only a hole for defecation, for 48 hours."
The paper reports that Grady County Sheriff Kieran McMullen "laughed at the accusations."
McMullen did acknowledge that special chairs with a poopy-hole are available "in case somebody's trying to hurt themselves or something," according to the account.
"But I'm not familiar with him ever being threatened with that," the sheriff said.
McMullen said Francis was pulled from the line because his family found out about his transportation to Reno.
"That's a security risk," McMullen said. "We don't tell anybody when a prisoner is going to be moved because if somebody knows, who knows what they could set up? "¦ The transport deputies came to me and told me about it and we pulled him."
