Pair charged with porno sales
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Salt Lake City has accused two brothers of selling obscene materials through their Internet business, claiming the Ohio enterprise shipped hard-core pornographic movies to Utah.

The films were violent and extreme and had no artistic value, said U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman,

"This is not the material you can order from your hotel room," Tolman said Thursday after unsealing a criminal complaint filed June 8.

The complaint charges 42-year-old Sami Harb and 33-year-old Michael Harb, who operate the Cleveland-based Movies by Mail, with one count each of selling obscene material. The defendants have been ordered to appear in federal court in Utah on June 29.

If convicted, the brothers face a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

The investigation began last year when the FBI's Adult Obscenity Task Force in Washington, D.C., got a tip about Movies by Mail, and agents say they were able to buy obscene DVDs on the company's Web site. In March, a Salt Lake City agent placed an online order and three of the movies - "Max Hardcore: Pure Max 18," "Max Hardcore: Extreme 12" and Extreme Associates: Cocktails 5" - were deemed to be obscene.

"None of the three films has a plot line," an FBI investigator wrote in a statement detailing the charge. "The films consist entirely of scenes of hard-core sexual acts being performed by multiple men and women."

Postal records show that Movies by Mail sent 683 packages in 2006 to Utah, 149 of them to Salt Lake City and the rest around the state, according to the complaint.

Assisting the FBI in the investigation were the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney's Offices in Salt Lake City and Cleveland and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Ohio brothers are accused of shipping hard-core films to Utah
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