Busted! The Uncensored, Oral History of the Two Films That Landed Roberta Findlay (and Jamie Gillis, Tina Russell, and Jack Bravman) in Jail – Part 1

How many films in history have resulted in the arrest of everyone involved?

Literally everyone: the producer, director, financers, actors, crew members, distributor, even the lab that processed the film prints.

That’s what happened to All in the Sex Family (1973) across four years in the mid-1970s. The era was rife with obscenity cases – and the history of another film, Deep Throat (1972), has been oft-repeated over the years – but what about the tale of this other mysterious, seldom-seen film?

Over the last 20 years, The Rialto Report tracked down every living person involved in ‘All in the Sex Family’ to hear their sides of the story. These are their recollections.

This is the Rashomon version of the making, prosecution – and persecution – of ‘All in the Sex Family.’

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The film was shot in two days in January 1973, opened with a whimper in November 1973, and spread like an unnecessary case of herpes across northeastern theaters into the new year of 1974. A low key, low-budget slipshod orphan of a sex movie, intended to be nothing more than an anonymous cash cow for its low-profile creators.

And then, unexpectedly, it imploded with a dull thud on January 28th, 1974 when it was seized by Suffolk County officials at the Pine Cinema in Coram, New York. Suddenly the little sex film that couldn’t was at the center of attention, splashed across tabloid headlines and debated in polite society.

‘All in the Sex Family’ had arrived with a bang – and that was never meant to happen.

There are police busts that are the result of months of detailed planning, careful research, and assiduous surveillance. They are executed with clockwork precision and meticulous care. Stakes are high, careers on the line, and the final outcome is in doubt until the eleventh hour.

The bust of ‘All in the Sex Family’ was not one of these.

In fact, it was a bizarre and fortuitous case for the Suffolk County prosecutors. A simple instance of being in the right place at the right time, the result of two previous obscenity busts in recent months that had fallen like a series of porno dominos.

Bust 1: The Devil in Miss Jones.  November 15th, 1973. The Pine Cinema. A Suffolk County jury had, predictably, found it to be obscene. This was a conservative New York enclave after all, and community standards mattered.

Bust 2: Behind the Green Door. It had replaced the now-banned ‘Devil in Miss Jones’ at the Pine Cinema. County officials took notice. Emboldened by Bust 1, they decided to return to the theater with a District Court Judge to take a gander. “Disgusting,” croaked the aging magistrate, who immediately signed a warrant authorizing the film’s seizure – as well as an arrest order for the theater’s owner, Arthur Strollo. And lo, on January 18th, 1974, a six-man jury found ‘Green Door’ obscene too, and Strollo was duly convicted.

So, onto Bust 3: ‘All in the Sex Family.’ The film was brought in to replace the now-banned ‘Green Door’ which had been brought in to replace ‘Devil in Miss Jones.’ Different movie, same end result. On January 28th, ‘Sex Family’ was seized – and the same unfortunate lackey, Arthur Strollo, was arrested yet again.

Saverio Fierro, chief of the Racket’s bureau, was more puffed up and satisfied than ever: “(’Sex Family’) includes the debasement of the human body and explicit acts of sodomy, (and) the dialogue that accompanied the filth that was depicted on screen was nothing more than a series of sophomoric banalities which were clear evidence of the deprived mind that conceived and produced the film.”

Three busts in two months. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s office was on a roll: Law-enforcers 3, Porn-mongers 0.

But then, the prosecutors took a closer look at ‘Sex Family.’ Yes, they found scenes of fornication, copulation, and no doubt, incest (this was a film about a ‘Sex Family’ after all, and, well, truth in advertising is important even in fuck films.) They also noticed something more worrying: they saw their own precious town depicted on the big screen intercut with the sex scenes. This time, the erections that troubled them were actual buildings. Not so much a case of “what the fuck?” but rather, “where the fuck?”

One scene showed the marquee for the Patchogue Sunrise All-Weather Drive-In theater; another revealed the local Long Island Railroad station. Outraged, Fierro spluttered another statement: “We are very much concerned by this blatant attempt by the smut peddlers to damage our county by filming their depraved acts of perversion right here!!” (The exclamation points are mine: they feel accurate.)

In truth, this was a red-faced, pants-down, hubris-halting embarrassment for the Suffolk authorities. Up to now, county officials had trumpeted their pride in being righteous soldiers at the vanguard of the valiant nationwide fight against the rising tide of filth. But now, they were confronted with an inconvenient truth: the pornography they were busting was being made in their own backyard. This game had just got way more serious. Someone, or rather, some people, were openly thumbing their noses at their precious community and at their efforts to stamp out smut – and mocking them through the medium of incest pornography.

But who were the disreputable scumbags that were sullying the moral character of Suffolk County in this way?

The local mayor managed to be both clueless and passive-aggressive: “I have nothing but sympathy for people who make sexually explicit films like this because they’re sick in the mind.” Equally baffled was the beleaguered Fierro: “The film has no credits, no titles. It starts like an old stag film: right in. It’s a mystery.”

The whole story tickled the local Newsday newspaper which proudly served Nassau and Suffolk counties. Its journalists turned up in the area, made their own enquiries, and quickly identified the film’s director as Jack Bravman, a 29-year-old living in Manhattan. They interviewed him on the phone, and reported his comments the next day: No, he hadn’t made the film to embarrass Suffolk County. He’d only shot it there because he happened to be living in Hauppauge at the time. “I was starving to death,” Jack said, “so I took the job because it paid $2,000.” Bravman did admit that the film’s $15,000 budget had been raised from people in Suffolk County – normal, salt-of-earth, everyday locals, who he refused to name. “They did it as an investment. It’s as simple as that,” he said. “And by today’s standards, the film is very tame: none of us have any connection to the world of pornography.”

The Newsday scoop was a thorn in the side for Fierro. A publicity insult added to his porno injury. He was a well-respected lawman in the area, but after Bravman was identified, he was pushed aside and Suffolk District Attorney, Henry Wenzel, stepped in announcing it was now a priority to arrest everyone associated with the film. Wenzel was true to his word: three months later, fourteen people would be arrested.

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Before

At the heart of every true crime story is a ringleader. The ringleader in this case was filmmaker Jack Bravman. The irony is that if you ask anyone who ever worked with Jack if he ever directed an adult film, or indeed directed any film, they will smile. Sure, Jack was sometimes listed as being the director, or producer, or writer, or editor, but the truth was that if there was hard graft to be done then it was probably someone else doing it.

Jack Bravman (producer):

I had been making sex films for years, but by 1973, the market had completely changed. Everything was expected to be explicit after Deep Throat had caused such a splash the previous year. I continued making films using a variety of pseudonyms, often a different name on each film. The difference was that the films were now hard-core.

Jack Bravman (center with cap)

Roberta Findlay (camera):

Jack is my oldest living friend in the whole world – except for maybe John Amero. Jack and I go way back to the early 1960s. We’ve shared everything over the years – including a bed. No sex though. He was an exception in that respect.

John Amero (filmmaker):

Whenever I got a call from Jack to work on a film with him, it meant two things: firstly, the budget would be minimal, and secondly, I’d end up doing everything myself while he’d be in the next room watching a ball game on TV. But he was loveable, and every film with him was an adventure. A cheap, hard-work adventure.

Jamie Gillis (actor):

Jack Bravman? (laughs). Bravman was a filmmaker in the same way that I’m a rabbi.

Jack Bravman:

I made a few quickies including Burning Desire (1973) that featured Georgina Spelvin and Marc Stevens; and Blow Hard (1974) with Jamie Gillis and Tina Russell. I used the alias ‘J. Angel Martine’ that I’d come across in Argentina on a few of them. I used Roberta as the camera woman on most of them.

Roberta Findlay:

One thing about Jack: he was a well-connected hustler. He knew film people, local dignitaries, mobsters, gamblers, everyone. I’d see him with lots of strange types. Did I tell you he had a racehorse? As far as I know, he never worked a day in his life for anyone else, but somehow… he collected useful people.

Roberta Findlay

Jack Bravman:

In 1972/73, I briefly lived in Hauppauge with a girlfriend, and became friendly with my neighbors. The topic of filmmaking came up in conversation a few times. One couple took a particular interest: Mary and Allan Commer. He worked in the post office in Hicksville, and she was an elementary school teacher at the Cherokee Street Elementary School in the Connetquot district. Mary loved the idea of making a movie, and won me over with her enthusiasm. She treated the idea like it was a class project: she started a fundraiser in the community, found us places to shoot, and became a busy production manager – so I couldn’t say no. Except this was a sex film. Mary and Allan even put some of their own money into it as well.

I hired the director, a guy named Bob Ruttenberg who was a film editor for CBS. He had a real job and made good money there, but he moonlighted on adult films all the time. It was just something that he liked to do. I was pretty close with him, and he was a really fun guy.

Robert Ruttenberg (director):

Jack said I worked on a lot of sex films? That’s not true. But it’s not something that I talk about either.

Jack Bravman:

One of big benefits of Bob was that he had access to CBS equipment – cameras, lighting, vans, you name it. That was a huge saving. And he usually brought crew members too. On this shoot, he had another CBS guy, Thad Data, who was an executive producer there, to help us out – and Thad helped finance the movie too. In fact, we used his Dodge car in the film – which would eventually prove to be our downfall.

I called Roberta and told her I was putting together a film called ‘All in the Sex Family’ and I wanted her to shoot it.

Ritchie Weigle (sound):

Roberta had just split from her latest boyfriend. Not Michael Findlay. This was another guy who she’d been living with in Hoboken. This guy asked her to get married and move with him to Montana. Or some other place in the middle of nowhere. Can you imagine Roberta in the countryside?!

She panicked, ran away from him… and moved in with me. And so, the two of us started seeing each other. In between her sleeping with other people, because that was what she did.

Roberta Findlay:

Ritchie was a nice Jewish boy. I met him when he was working for Ross Gaffney, a sound and music company in New York. I think Richie and I were living together at the time, so I told him he was going to be the sound man on Jack’s new film.

Jack Bravman:

As for actors, I knew Jamie Gillis and Tina and Jason Russell well – so I called them.

I needed a couple of others, and I’d met a couple of local girls (Faye Bowling and Sheila Smith) – one who worked in a real estate office and the other who was a computer programmer. They agreed to act in the movie as well.

Jason and Tina Russell

Jamie Gillis (actor):

At that time, I was acting with Jean Erdman’s company in an evening of Yeats plays in Manhattan. Jean was the wife of the renowned author/teacher Joseph Campbell, but he was just Joe to us when he’d pick up his wife after a rehearsal.

During one performance when I was standing on the stage – which was, for the moment, dark – a wooden beam fell on my head and I literally saw stars. I stood back both amazed by the phenomenon and determined to carry on in spite of my pain.

At first, I turned down ‘All in the Sex Family’ because I wanted to concentrate on recovering and doing theater work. But Jack begged me to (do it), swearing he’d finish in time for the evenings’ performances so I relented.

Valerie Marron (actor):

I’d just met Jamie. Or to phrase that another way: I was obsessed with Jamie. I would’ve done anything he asked me to. Anything. So when he asked me to be in a film, I said yes. Or rather, I said, YES! I think I had just turned 18. Or maybe not, I can’t remember for sure.

Jason Russell (actor):

I mean… it was always easy money for us, right? Tina and I had often worked for Jack, but it was never a Hollywood experience. We did it when we didn’t have anything better to do. Which was all the time (laughs).

Jack Bravman:

We scheduled the shoot in Suffolk County, in the middle of the winter when no one else was there.

Mary (Commer) found a rented house (at 126 Country Village Lane) in East Islip that belonged to a teacher colleague of hers (Alan Scott), so we shot there.

Jason Russell:

It was a real pain in the ass because we had to schlep out to the middle of Long Island in the freezing cold to a house there. God knows why Jack wanted to shoot it there. But we were young and didn’t care so much, I guess.

Ritchie Weigle:

It was my first experience on a porn shoot, and you never forget your first time. Mainly because of the scars seeing it all up close. A few years later, I went on to do sound for shocker films like Driller Killer (1979), but let me tell you: nothing is as bleak as making a hardcore sex film on Long Island in the middle of the winter.

Alan Scott (owner of the house) (speaking to Newsday in 1977):

I was paid $150 for two days filming in the house. Mary Commer told me the movie would be tasteful, and when I saw the film trucks arrive, they were marked with the CBS logo so I had no reason to suspect anything.

Jamie Gillis:

I was used to filming in other people’s houses, but the owners weren’t usually present. And if they were, they knew what we were doing. This time, I was having sex with Tina in the master bedroom when the homeowner walked past the door. By the look on his face, he definitely wasn’t expecting this to be a sex film.

Jamie Gillis, 1972

Alan Scott (speaking to Newsday in 1977):

I walked past the bedroom door to make a cup of coffee in the kitchen, I saw one of actors, naked with a whip, standing over a woman.

Jamie Gillis:

The plot? Are you crazy? It didn’t have one, or at least I can’t remember back that far…

I just remember I was stressed about finishing the shoot in time each day to get back into the city for my theater gig.

At one point while I was fucking my coworker doggy style, I said to Jack: “I gotta go!” He said: “You’re gonna come”? – meaning should he concentrate the camera on my ejaculation? I said: “I gotta come, I gotta go, I gotta get outta here!”

Jack Bravman:

The shoot took just a couple of days. After that, Roberta and I drove around the area and shot exteriors. It all went smoothly.

*

After

Robert Ruttenberg:

After we wrapped in Suffolk County (in January 1973), Jack proposed we make a film for Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. Jack was a poker player and he knew the management there. They were excited about the idea of having us film the 1973 World Series of Poker Championship. In reality, it was an excuse for Jack to get out there to play Texas Hold ‘em, but I signed up to it.

Jack Bravman:

The poker film took over our lives for a few months, so ‘Sex Family’ got put on the back burner for a while. The Vegas experience was great: it was the era of Doyle Brunson, Puggy Pearson, and Amarillo Slim. After we filmed the event, we came back to New York and edited it. Binion’s loved the film we made (The World Series of Poker (1973)), and we were well paid.

I eventually returned to work on ‘Sex Family’ in the fall of 1973, and it was released in November 1973. I thought it turned out well. I turned it over to Harold Rosen, an old, independent film guy who had a company called Tempo Releasing. Hal was an expert in distributing B-movies around the country. I think he started ‘Sex Family’ out in theaters in Indiana of all places.

Then two months after its release, I got a call from a journalist telling me that the film had been busted. I thought there must be a mistake.

‘Green Door’ Sequel: Another Confiscation – Newsday, Suffolk Edition, January 29th 1974

‘All in the Sex Family’, the film which replaced ‘Behind the Green Door’ at a theater here, was seized yesterday by county officials who said they would ask a grand jury to investigate the possibility that the film was made in Suffolk.

Not realizing the severity of the case, Jack consented to a brief interview, figuring the storm would blow over. Sure enough, after the initial bust, the ‘Sex Family’ case went quiet.

As an aside, in the weeks after the ‘Sex Family’ bust, the same theater was raided a fourth time – for a Tina Russell vehicle, Whatever Happened to Miss September? Besieged theater manager, Arthur Strollo (yup, him again), was arrested once more – and at this point, it’s almost hard to disagree with the Judge’s pronouncement that Strollo had shown “a distinct lack of remorse and a lack of respect of the law and the verdict of the citizens of this county.” Despite being represented by Joseph Rhine (a veteran San Francisco defense attorney who married adult film actress, director, and producer Ann Perry) Strollo was sentenced to four months in Suffolk County jail and fined $20,000.

Then three months later, at the end of April 1974, ‘All in the Sex Family’ return to center stage: Suffolk D.A. Henry Wenzel swooped, arresting 13 people involved in its making.

Jack Bravman:

The cops managed to trace us by correctly identifying the drive-in, and then reading the license plates from the cars we used in the movie. They came after us by watching incriminating evidence in our own film!

Roberta Findlay:

That’s not strictly true. The license plates may have led them to Jack – but no one else. But then, somehow, they connected my name to the film.

Jack Bravman:

I was living back in the city in the Camelot building on West 45th St – the same building that Roberta was living in. The cops turned up at my apartment and banged on my door for hours. I think I’d taken some Quaaludes so I was sound asleep when they came.

After the newspaper interview that I did, I hid all the paperwork related to the film. But when they turned up to arrest me, they went through my papers and found a reference to Roberta. No one else. Just her. That’s how they got her name. I think they just took the elevator down to her apartment.

Roberta Findlay:

I was in bed with Ritchie (Weigle) when I heard a knock on the door. That was unusual because no one ever visited me. I had no friends.

I opened the door in my underwear, and six police officers confronted me. They asked me who I was and so I told them. They asked if I was a filmmaker. I said, “I’ve been known to use a camera.” They didn’t find that funny, and they said something about arresting me.

At this point, Ritchie appeared. He took the role of a gallant gentleman, and tried to insert himself into the scene to protect me. Ritchie was the sweetest, most gentle creature. He would never hurt anyone.

Ritchie Weigle:

The cops said I looked threatening, so they handcuffed me to a chair and they took Roberta into the next room to ask her questions.

Roberta Findlay:

They said they knew I’d been involved in making ‘All in the Sex Family.’ Apparently, Jack had been arrested. They told me I had two choices: they could either take me to the precinct and I would face a prison sentence. Or I could give them the names of everyone else who was involved – and they would walk away, leave me alone, and set me free.

So I gave them all the names. Everyone. Including Ritchie who was tied up in the next room. Then they arrested us both, and threw us both in jail. And they arrested everyone else too.

Never trust the police, I guess.

‘Indict Tina and 11 for Sex Film’ – Daily News, April 30th 1974

Twelve persons, including a self-proclaimed pornography queen, were indicted yesterday in connection with the production and distribution of the first full-length pornography movie filmed in Suffolk.

The 12, including five women, were indicted on charges obscenity and conspiracy following a three-month investigation by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s rackets bureau.

It was an unprecedented demonstration of force against a single film, the equivalent of using nitroglycerine to crack open a walnut.  Everyone with any connection to the film was picked up, a total of 13 people (despite the newspaper’s mis-counting). They were: Jack Bravman, Roberta Findlay, Bob Ruttenberg, Ritchie Weigle, Thaddeus Data, Tina Russell, Jason Russell, Jamie Gillis, Harold Rosen, Allan Commer, Mary Commer, Faye Bowling, and Sheila Smith.

Also indicted, just for processing the film, was Cineffects Color Laboratories Inc. of 115 West 45th St in Manhattan.

Henry Wenzel (Suffolk District Attorney) (speaking in 1974):

We’re trying to make it evident to people who think this is a quick way to make a dollar that this is not a legitimate industry on Long Island. This film goes beyond community standards, and it obvious even to those who made it that it is pornographic.

Jack Bravman:

We were all charged – the actors, the crew members, the distributor, Hal Rosen, who I’d met at MGM in the 1960s, and even the people who supplied the locations. The cops woke everyone up at dawn, arrested them, and hauled them to Suffolk County courthouse to be arraigned.

Jamie Gillis:

By the time the film came out, I was living in Los Angeles. I was awakened one morning about 6am by detectives pounding on my door. The detectives who came for me searched through my pants for a weapon before they allowed me to put them on. I said, “Hey, this is about sex. I’m a lover, not a killer.”

They didn’t smile. Cops never seem to smile, at least not when they’re working.

Jason Russell:

Tina and I got arrested almost a year and a half after we’d made the fucking movie! I couldn’t believe it. I was so mad: how stupid was Jack to insert footage of local landmarks so it could be identified?

Robert Ruttenberg:

My attorney told me we faced up to seven years in prison and significant fines. I was angry with Jack because I figured it was his carelessness that had led the police to my door. Then I realized that he was implicated just like the rest of us.

Jamie Gillis:

I couldn’t work out how the cops knew where to find me (because I was in California). Then my buddy, porn star Marc Stevens, confessed he gave the police my address. I never really had any hard feelings about it. I know that detectives can exert a lot of pressure so I didn’t blame him. So I forgive you, you poor, long-dead faggot.

Ok, maybe I do harbor a little anger.

Alan Sugarman (superintendent of the Connetquot School district) (speaking to Newsday in 1974):

A special school board meeting was held to discuss the arrest of a local teacher, Mary Commer. The board will be taking no action pending further information.

Jamie Gillis:

Due to the fact that I was technically a fugitive from justice I was put on a high bail.

After my arrest, I was ushered into a large holding area housing maybe 50 guys. I can still hear the heavy clang of the steel door closing behind me. Toilets were out in the open and lined up along a wall, and the arrested were a pretty scary crew. The only inmate who seemed educated and sensitive enough to actually have a conversation with was an ex-Nazi who was in for credit card fraud. I’m not sure if I mentioned to him that I was Jewish but I don’t think he’d have minded. War is war and duty is duty, and all that.

Most of our time was spent playing chess with a set of pieces we crafted out of cast-off aluminum papers from cigarette packs.

Valerie Marron:

Jamie called me to say he’s been arrested. For some reason, no one could remember my name, so I wasn’t arrested at first. I was freaked out, so I turned myself in.

Jamie Gillis:

I spent the weekend in jail and was released on my own recognizance after I agreed to get myself back to New York to face the charges. I explained in a phone call to the Suffolk County D.A. that I didn’t have the air fare and he barked: “Walk!”

I ended up taking the bus. I didn’t really mind. The bus left from a Hollywood stop just steps from where I lived and brought me to the midtown bus terminal in Manhattan. It was practically door to door.

Richard Salant (President of CBS News) (speaking to Newsday in 1974):

I’m not going to comment (on the arrests of Robert Ruttenberg and Thad Data). They’re entitled to a little due process. I’ll take my time and get to the facts.

Richard Salant – thirty minutes later:

Ruttenberg and Data have been asked not to report into work.

Ritchie Weigle:

After the arrests, we were released on bail – but the case took years. And every single hearing or court meeting meant we had to report to the court out on Long Island. It was like they were trying to wear us down. We were all cursing Jack at that point.

Nearly everyone took a plea just to close the chapter.

Jack Bravman:

The authorities didn’t really have a case, but it dragged on for years. And in the meantime, we used the scandal to promote the film!

Jason Russell:

I copped a plea. I didn’t care. I just wanted to put it all behind me. But Tina disagreed: she said she had done nothing wrong and was willing to go to trial.

Our relationship was on the rocks and we were splitting up at the time, so I just let her do her thing.

Jamie Gillis:

Back in New York, there was a lot of porn filming going so I took an apartment at 305 West 45th St between 8th and 9th Aves.

I was technically facing years in jail but my court-appointed lawyer said that it was more likely I’d get a $100 fine. All the other defendants were copping pleas, but I decided to go to trial along with Tina Russell rather than take a plea as that would’ve meant having a criminal record. I thought I might as well have the experience of going to trial.

Jack Bravman:

Throughout the whole process, we were represented by Kassner and Detsky, who were mob lawyers. They defended all the sex filmmakers at the time – John Amero, Gerry Damiano – all of them had Kassner and Detsky on speed-dial. They did these cases to get their name in the papers. They were the big defenders of mob-related pornography charges, which is where they made all their money.

On the positive side, it didn’t do us any harm that Roberta was having sex with Kassner…

Roberta Findlay:

That’s not true. Well, it is true that I was having a fling with Herbie. Or “Mr. Kassner” as he insisted that I call him when we were in bed.

But my fling had nothing to do with the outcome of our case. What happened was that I told “Mr. Kassner” that we had no money to pay him. He said he knew the Judge and would tell him to go lightly on sentencing us because we had no money. I just wanted to get out of this case as quickly as possible.

Jack Bravman:

Kassner was a complete liar in court hearings. He would make up whatever fake narrative suited his argument. Roberta and I just looked at each other with open mouths. Fortunately, he was on our side, so we didn’t complain

Roberta Findlay:

In the end, the Judge dismissed the charges against Jack and I if we pled guilty. And we didn’t pay anything for our defense.

Come to think of it, maybe it was related to the fact that I was sleeping with our attorney.

Jack Bravman:

I pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of conspiring to promote obscenity – reduced from a felony promotion of obscenity. The Judge fined me $500 – and then it was over for me.

That meant the only people left who hadn’t copped pleas were: Tina Russell, Jamie Gillis, and Allan and Mary Commer. They had to go to court.

Jamie Gillis:

The court case didn’t take place until March of 1977 – nearly four years after we shot the film!

By that time, I was dating Andrea Ambers, who was the devilishly adorable and very bright young editor of a men’s magazine called Cheri. I met her at a fundraising event at Elaine’s for the highly-publicized ‘Deep Throat’ trial in Tennessee.

Andrea decided that if I was going to court, we should go together in a limo (which she would pay for). My lawyer was aghast and told me that the limo would make the wrong impression on jurors. Andrea said ok, and got us a van instead.

As part of the court case, ‘All in the Sex Family’ had to be shown to the jury. Except that the court room did not have the ability to screen a movie, so the entire courtroom relocated to Hauppauge Theater for the screening.

And because this was part of a court proceeding, the event was completely open to the general public. The film that was being accused of being obscene was now being shown by the local authorities, free of charge, to the whole local community. The theater was packed, with long lines being turned away.

‘All in the Sex Family’ Screening for Jurors – Newsday, Suffolk Edition, March 29th 1977

Defense Attorney Robert Shebar said he would prove that his client, the Commers, had been duped into lending Jack Bravman, the film’s producer, about $3,000 to finance what they thought would be an art film that would not include explicit sex scenes. According to their attorneys, Ms. Russell was paid $100 and Gillis $75 for their performances.

The prosecution contends that the Commers knowingly invested in the film with criminal intent, promoted it and expected to profit by it.

Jamie Gillis:

The felony conspiracy charges against me and Tina were dismissed on the first day because our attorney argued that our involvement in the movie had ended the second that the production finished.

But Tina and I still faced the obscenity charges.

The conspiracy charges against Allan Commer were also dropped – but not those relating to his wife Mary. The Judge said those charges would stand as she had written the checks to the producer to fund the production, and also because she had solicited the house from Alan Scott.

This meant that the last remaining case – for obscenity – against Tina, Jamie, and Mary would go to the jury.

Gerald Lotto (Tina Russell’s attorney) (speaking in court in 1977):

Tina Russell is a mixed-up girl. The prosecution may have proved that she’s a slut, but he hasn’t proved she’s a criminal.

‘Sex Film Case Ends in Mistrial’, Newsday Suffolk Edition, April 2nd 1977

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Jaspan declared a mistrial yesterday in the ‘All in the Sex Family’ movie case after the jury announced that it was unable to reach a verdict.

The jury, which had deliberated for 14½ hours, said it could not decide what could be considered obscene according to local community standards, and therefore could not decide on the guilt or innocence of the three persons who remained on trial for the involvement in the production of the allegedly pornographic film.

Anthony Infranco (juror) (speaking to Newsday in 1977):

The law is so vague we almost felt we were being punished by having to reach a verdict. We also didn’t know what a community standard is.

Gerald Lotto (speaking in 1977):

The jury’s indecision reflects a change in the public’s attitude about pornography. The jury’s inability to decide means nobody cares enough to prove what the community standards are any more. The attitude now is that if you want to see it, go ahead, as long as it doesn’t involve me and it doesn’t involve children.

Jamie Gillis:

They didn’t dare petition for a re-trial. The charges were dropped completely, and we were free at last. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we were free at last (laughs).

I had hoped that this court case might set some legal precedent but the whole business just petered out and my record was expunged.

My thought as I was going home was that it was truly an occasion to celebrate with flat champagne.

Jack Bravman:

Looking back, it was a crying shame. Some small people got hurt for no reason. I feel bad about that. Especially the Commers. They didn’t deserve that.

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After the After

And so after four years, hundreds of legal arguments, and thousands of dollars spent, Suffolk County returned to being an enclave of conservative respectability, right?

Not quite. In 2016, a prominent Suffolk County Judge broke into his neighbor’s home, running away when he realized that a female resident was home. When apprehended, officers found several pairs of women’s underwear in his suit jacket and raincoat.

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s office later revealed that the 50-year-old Judge had unlawfully entered his neighbor’s home in East Islip on multiple occasions, each time with the intent to steal more underwear from his neighbor’s dirty laundry.

No jail sentence resulted. The authorities kept the sex affair all in the family.

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