FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CRM

MONDAY, JULY 31, 2006 (202) 514-2007

WWW.USDOJ.GOV TDD (202) 514-1888

Two Men Sentenced to Federal Prison

on Obscenity Conviction
Defendants Sold Rape/Torture Videos on Internet
WASHINGTON - Clarence Thomas Gartman, 35, and his brother-in-law, former
Houston Police Officer Brent Alan McDowell, 37, were sentenced today in Dallas,
announced Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher for the Criminal Division and
U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper for the Northern District of Texas. The Honorable
U.S. Senior District Judge Barefoot Sanders 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, Gartman and McDowell
were each found guilty of one count of Mailing Obscene Material and Aiding and
Abetting. Gartman was found guilty of an additional count of Conspiracy to Mail
Obscene Material.

The case was initially investigated by the Dallas Police Department after they
received a tip from a German citizen who told them that a site 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 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.

“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,” said U.S. Attorney Roper.

The government provided evidence at trial that beginning in 1998, Gartman and
McDowell maintained a site on the Internet, forbiddenvideos.com. The 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 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 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 site, or related 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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