Azov Films Prosecutions
Background
Azov Films was based in Toronto, Canada, and specialized in selling barely-legal visual material mostly featuring boys participating in nudist gym and camp sports. The films were apparently produced in Eastern Europe. The legality of the material differed from country to country, but was widely believed to be well established in the major market, the U.S.A., which has historically tolerated depictions of underage nudity provided there is no sexual content.
However, the company's website (www.azovfilms.com) closed on or about May 1, 2011, apparently as a result of a police raid according to some US authorities, although there is no corroboration of this from Canadian authorities or the Canadian press. These same US authorities have obtained business records from Azov Films including customer e-mail and postal mail addresses and transaction receipts with customer credit card information.
Starting in 2012, some US customers of Azov Films were arrested and charged with receipt and possession of child pornography: some of the nude visual material has been construed as illegal by US Law Enforcement Officers, including agents of the United States Postal Inspection Service. So far, all of the prosecutions are based on receipt by postal mail of Azov DVDs.
A list of all the English titles of the Azov Films known to date appears on the French Boywiki. [1]
Defendants
(This may be an incomplete list. All of these individuals should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Azov Films is not yet explicitly cited in the official documentation of some of these cases, but there is strong circumstantial evidence that the alleged pornographic material was their product.)
- Joseph Monroe Wilson (Teacher) of Dallas, Georgia, now of Spartanburg, South Carolina
- Richard Keller, M.D. of Andover, Massachusetts
- William S. Thomas (Nurse) of Andover, Massachusetts
- Edward F. Cousens of Holbrook, Massachusetts
- Gerald Deneault of Mansfield, Massachusetts
- Gerald Silva (State Probation Officer) of Coventry, Rhode Island
- Sgt. Phillip Woolery (Grapevine Police Department) of Crowley, Texas
- Harry Hopper of Tecumseh, Oklahoma
- Gary Jefferson Byrd of Opelousas, Louisiana
