Celebrity Justice
O.J. on Bail While Francis Chills in Cooler

While O.J. Simpson is probably headed to the golf course today after three days in jail and hopping the first flight out of Nevada last night, Joe Francis -- waiting to face trial on tax evasion charges -- is still cooling his heels in a jail near Reno, with no end to his incarceration in sight. Yes, he's still there.

To help bring his plight to light, Francis has launched MeetJoeFrancis.com -- from inside the clink -- and it's launching today. He tells the long and sordid story of his legal woes -- ten long pages of it -- and even claims that he signed a settlement in his cell (above) with seven women who had filed suit against him for filming them while they were minors. He signed "under duress" from a judge he believed would set him free for doing so. Not true.


Elsewhere, the "Girls Gone Wild" founder tries to set the record straight on the charge that he flashed a Benjamin to bribe a prison guard to get him a bottle of water. Francis says that he was just giving the guard money to go down to the commissary so he could take his cholesterol and sleep meds, but that it got blown out of proportion too.

There is a legal reason that Francis is stuck in jail -- if he steps foot outside the Washoe County Detention Center, he'll be picked up by marshals and shipped back to Florida for more jail time, because, unlike OJ, his bail has not been granted.

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(Page 6 of 6) Previous 15 Comments

76. This is why he is in jail for tax evasion:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0411072joefrancis1.html

Posted at 1:28AM on Sep 21st 2007 by why he's in jail

77. About the "consent" of the young girls I more believe the LA Times reporter (who was threatened) than Joe Francis who belongs to jail for tax evasion (millions of dollars!).
http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/west/la-tm-gonewild32aug06,0,2664370.story

Do you call this "consent"?

"Szyszka tells me later that as she was spinning around the strip pole that night, Francis appeared, grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. 'You are so going on the bus later,' she recalls Francis saying. "I was like, 'Um, OK.' I was shocked. I was like, 'Whoa—Joe's, like, trying to talk to me, like out of all the girls in here.'" Francis invited her back to the VIP area to do shots with him, she says, and she said yes.

Szyszka says the more shots she drank, the cloudier her judgment became. She says she agreed to join Francis and his crew on the "Girls Gone Wild" bus. "I thought 'Girls Gone Wild' was like flashing, and I thought I would flash them and be done. And so when I'm walking to the bus, that's all I'm thinking is going to happen."

At first she felt comfortable, she says. Inebriated and excited, she says she was led to the back of the bus, to a small bedroom. The double bed, with its neatly folded iridescent purple sheets, takes up most of the room. A flat-screen TV faces the bed, and cabinets are filled with remote controls, lubricants, condoms, sex toys in plastic bags, baby oil, a DVD called 'How to be a Player' and a clipboard full of waivers for girls to sign. A small bathroom is off to the side, with a half-sized shower with faux marble tiling, and on the floor of the shower is a crate holding cheap and fruity-flavored rum, whiskey, tequila and Kool-Aid.

Footage from that night shows a close-up of Szyszka's driver's license, proving she's not a minor. The camera then captures Szyszka lying on the bed. Her nails are chipped, her eyes coated with makeup. Following a camerman's instructions, she shows her breasts and says, 'Girls Gone Wild.' She seems shy but willing. She smiles. The unseen cameraman asks her to take off her shirt, her skirt, then her underwear. She sprawls on the bed, her legs open. At his suggestion, she masturbates with a dildo, saying repeatedly that it hurts but also feels good. Francis enters the room at certain points and you hear his voice, low and flirtatious, telling her, 'You are so adorable.' When she says she's a virgin, he responds: 'Great. You won't be after my cameraman gets done with you.'

When I talk to Szyszka seven days later, she says she "didn't quite realize" she was being filmed. 'But I didn't care because I was drunk and who cares?# Then she adds: 'It didn't feel good to me at all, but I was totally faking it because I was on 'Girls Gone Wild.''

Eventually, Szyszka says, Francis told the cameraman to leave and pushed her back on the bed, undid his jeans and climbed on top of her. 'I told him it hurt, and he kept doing it. And I keep telling him it hurts. I said, 'No' twice in the beginning, and during I started saying, 'Oh, my god, it hurts.' I kept telling him it hurt, but he kept going, and he said he was sorry but kissed me so I wouldn't keep talking."
Afterward, she says, Francis cleaned them both off with a paper towel and told her to get dressed. Then, she says, he opened the door and told the cameraman to come back, saying, 'She's not a virgin anymore.'

Szyszka says Francis told her that what happened had to stay between them. She says she agreed, and they walked to the front of the bus. Szyszka remembers that one of the crew returned her driver's license. * Another asked if she wanted to hang out on the bus. She declined, she says, but asked for three pairs of 'booty short' underwear that Francis had promised her for appearing on camera. 'They gave me a weird look like that was too much,' Szyszka recalls. 'They were, like, 'Three of them?' and I was, like, 'Yeah, three.''

Within days, Szyszka says, she told her father, who was angry about what she said had happened but kept quiet at her request. A month after the incident, she says, she told her sister and mother.

She's confused, she admits, about what happened. She feels guilty, she says, for getting herself into the situation in the first place. She says she never would have undressed for the cameras if she hadn't been completely drunk. And she is adamant that she said "no" to Francis. She says she's haunted by that night.

'I feel like it was planned,' she says. 'Sometimes I'm driving along, and I think about it and all of a sudden feel weird.'

Six weeks after that night outside Chicago, when I call Francis on his cellphone and ask him about the incident, he says he doesn't remember Szyszka and that he didn't have sex with anyone that night. He seems to lose control, repeatedly referring to me by a crude word for female genitalia. 'If you print that, I will [expletive] sue the [expletive] out of you. If you print that, baby, you just put the nail in your own coffin,' he tells me. 'You are a [expletive expletive]. You decided to blast me . . . You are a [expletive] ***** . . . I will get my last laugh on you. I will get you." He then refers me to Burke, his lawyer.

In an e-mail, Burke says Francis and Szyszka did have sex—consensual sex—and that neither Francis nor anyone affiliated with "Girls Gone Wild" gave her any alcohol. 'Neither Mr. Francis nor any of the GGW staff in or around the bus recall Ms. Szyszka making any complaint or comment about Mr. Francis. In fact, Ms. Szyszka was in good spirits after the encounter, and numerous witnesses have stated that she danced with her friends outside the bus for nearly two hours afterward,' Burke writes. He adds: 'Though Mr. Francis cannot speak to Ms. Szyszka's discomfort during the encounter, other news stories have commented that Mr. Francis is reputedly well-endowed.'"
http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/west/la-tm-gonewild32aug06,0,2664370.story

Tax evasion charges:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0411072joefrancis4.html

This man is a CRIMINAL and it's unbelievable that TMZ posts the link to his website and that some users post "free him" without any knowledge about the charges.

Posted at 1:58AM on Sep 21st 2007 by Do you call this "consent"?

78. This story just made my day!

I completely forgot about the parasite sex offender that is Joe Francis.

Still in prison? Oh well...................... my heart bleeds.

"What goes around .......................comes all the way back around".

Posted at 6:10AM on Sep 21st 2007 by KiwiGirl

79. Thats a Shame how these folk set OJ up.Problem is that OJ has not figured out who the Devil is YET!!!!!!!! He still wants to be an Honorary White Guy...

Posted at 6:20AM on Sep 21st 2007 by Ceasar

80. He's just another rat and belongs in a Jail.........

Posted at 6:24AM on Sep 21st 2007 by Ceasar

81. He's just another rat and belongs in a Jail.........

Posted at 6:23AM on Sep 21st 2007 by Ceasar

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