Paul Reubens - Pornography Arrest: 2002

Pornography Arrest: 2002

In November 2002, while filming David La Chapelle's video for Elton John's "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore", Reubens learned that police were at his home with a search warrant, acting on a tip from a witness in the pornography case against actor Jeffrey Jones, finding among over 70,000 items of kitsch memorabilia, two grainy videotapes and dozens of photographs that the city attorney's office characterized as a collection of child pornography. Kelly Bush, Reubens' personal representative at the time, said the description of the items was inaccurate and claimed the objects were "Rob Lowe's sex videotape, and a few 30- to 100-year-old kitsch collectible images." Reubens turned himself in to the Hollywood division of the LAPD and was charged with possession of obscene material improperly depicting a child under the age of 18 in sexual conduct. The District Attorney looked at Reubens' collection and computer and found no grounds for bringing any felony charges against him, while the city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo brought misdemeanor charges against Reubens on the last day allowed by the statute. Reubens was represented by Hollywood criminal defense lawyer Blair Berk. In December he pleaded not guilty through Berk, who also complained that the city attorney failed to turn over evidence to the defense, which City Attorney Richard Katz countered that prosecutors were not required to do until after arraignment, after which they did; neither side disclosed the contents.

"One thing I want to make very, very clear, I don't want anyone for one second to think that I am titillated by images of children. It's not me. You can say lots of things about me. And you might. The public may think I'm weird. They may think I'm crazy or anything that anyone wants to think about me. That's all fine. As long as one of the things you're not thinking about me is that I'm a pedophile. Because that's not true."

In March 2004, child pornography charges were dropped. For the next three years he had to register his address with the sheriff's office and could not be in the company of minors without their parents' permission. Reubens later stated that he was a collector of erotica, including films, muscle magazines and a sizable collection of mostly homosexual vintage erotica, such as photographic studies of teen nudes. Reubens claimed that what the city attorney's office viewed as pornography, he considered to be innocent art and that what they described as people underage engaged in masturbation or oral copulation was in fact a judgmental point of view of the nudes that Reubens described as people "one hundred percent not" performing sexual acts. Being a big collector, Reubens had often bought in bulk, with one of his vintage magazines dealers declaring that "there's no way" he could have known the content of each page in the publications he bought and that he recalled Reubens asking for "physique magazines, vintage 1960s material, but not things featuring kids".

He spent the next two years caring for his terminally ill father in Florida, who died in February 2004 of cancer.