With Ties To Gay Pornography In His Background, Bill Pryor Thrives In South's Toxic Political Culture

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Readers Pitch In To Support An Independent Voice Among The Top 50 Law Blogs In North America

Murphy Abigail Shuler, the schnauzer
who inspired a top 50 law blog

We have been heartened by response to the first fund-raising campaign in Legal Schnauzer history. For six-plus years, this blog has been a "no profit" enterprise, with no ads, no donate button, no form of external support. That changed last Thursday when we installed a donate button in the upper left-hand corner of the blog, and we are pleased to report that a number of readers have been most generous in their support.

Why does this matter? A look at a 2012 ranking of "The Top 50 Independent Law Blogs in North America" provides perspective. And it suggests Legal Schnauzer might be the only blog of its kind in the Unites States and Canada. To be sure, the number of like blogs is extremely small.

Cision, a Chicago-based social media/marketing firm, compiled the ranking, and we were pleased to discover that Legal Schnauzer came in at No. 37. Actually, we were more than pleased; we were stunned, almost speechless--and regular readers know that is an unusual state for us.

How many law blogs are there in North America? We don't know, but our research indicates they number well into the hundreds of thousands; wouldn't be surprised if it tops a million. To think that a one-man operation like Legal Schnauzer could break through all of that clutter to reach the top 50 . . . well, I'm still dumbfounded--especially when you consider I did nothing to push for inclusion in the Cision survey, and I didn't even know it was taking place.

Perhaps the most curious element of the Cision rankings is its use of the word "independent" to describe the blogs on the list. I've read everything I can find about Cision and its surveys, but I still don't know what they mean by "independent law blogs." My best guess is that it refers to legal blogs that are not attached to any form of mainstream media, such as a newspaper, magazine, or broadcast outlet.

I've researched each blog in the top 50 and discovered many of them are not as "independent" as it might appear--certainly not when compared to the kind of independence we have here at Legal Schnauzer. In fact, it appears that LS is one of only two blogs on the list that could be called truly independent.

Do most of the blogs on the Cision list receive some sort of institutional support? The answer is a yes, and here is a breakdown:

* Of the 50 blogs, 47 are written by lawyers; those lawyers are connected to law firms of various sizes;

* Of the 50 blogs, 27 are group blogging efforts, including more than one author. Some have a dozen or more writers;

* Of the 50 blogs, 13 are connected to law schools;

* Three of the blogs are tied to a major publishing house, American Lawyer Media.

* One of the blogs, LSAT Blog: Ace the LSAT, appears tied to a business enterprise, with ties to the legal and publishing fields.

Legal Schnauzer is the only blog on the list that is based in Alabama, and only four others are in the Southeast--three in Florida and one in Atlanta.

The only other truly independent blog on the list appears to be Grits for Breakfast, which focuses on the Texas criminal justice system and came in at No. 3. It is the work of Scott Henson, who describes himself as "a a former journalist turned opposition researcher/political consultant, public policy researcher and blogger."

Henson has been an associate editor at Texas Observer and has worked for the ACLU, the Sunshine Project for Police Accountability, and the Innocence Project of Texas. He has an impressive background, and if I am alone in his company on the Cision list . . . well, that seems like a pretty good place to be.

This much is clear: Independent voices in the legal blogosphere are rare. We are fortunate here at Legal Schnauzer to have readers who recognize the value in what we do. Whether their support is financial, moral, emotional, informational, or otherwise, it all is greatly appreciated.

For the record, it's probably safe to say that we are the only law blog that draws inspiration from the memory of a beloved pet. Our work is dedicated to Murphy Abigail Shuler (1993-2004), the miniature schnauzer who helped us survive some of the darkest days of our personal legal nightmare. Since starting this blog, I've heard from an extraordinary number of similar victims; they come from all corners of the United States.

That reminds me of Hillary Clinton, who is famed for saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." I've come to learn that it also takes a village to shine a spotlight on a broken justice system.

Legal Schnauzer might be a one-man operation, but it's never been a one-man effort. Those who have pitched in to help have our deepest gratitude.

As Reports Mount About His '90s Ties To Gay Porn, Judge Bill Pryor Rides The Luther Strange Love Train

Bill Pryor, in a "family
friendly" version of his
badpuppy.com photo.

The number of news accounts is steadily growing about photographs of U.S. Circuit Judge Bill Pryor that appeared at a gay porn Web site called badpuppy.com in the 1990s. Perhaps the story has not "gone viral" yet, but given Pryor's staunchly anti-gay views and the flagrant hypocrisy the photos represent, members of the gay press are starting to latch onto the tale with glee. (See here, here, and here.) The style site NewNowNext.com picked up on the story yesterday.

Based on inquiries I'm receiving from major news outlets, the story might go viral on the Web at any moment. Pryor once was considered a conservative boy wonder, whose boyish looks and right-wing credentials made him a possibility for future appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Pryor might be watching that dream, and maybe quite a few others, slowly swirl down the drain.

(Perhaps the most fair and thorough report I've seen on the story so far comes from the "U.S. Eleventh Circuit Blog" at findlaw.com. Written by William Peacock, Esq., the piece is titled, "Accusations of Bias in 11th Circuit Judge: Pryor's Nude Photo Scandal." I recommend it as a solid overview and analysis of the evolving story.)

How has Pryor responded to all of this? In a dumbfoundingly ignorant way, by apparently aligning himself with three Alabama lawyers who have dubious records on mattes of ethics. Who forms this unholy alliance? We are talking about Birmingham-based lawyer Bill Baxley, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, and Strange's mistress/former campaign manager Jessica Medeiros Garrison.

What signs point to Pryor joining hands with Baxley, Strange, and Garrison? Well, let's consider Pryor's response late last week when D.C.-based lawyer/journalist Andrew Kreig contacted the judge for comment about the gay porn story. Our understanding is that Kreig plans to use Pryor's response in an upcoming article at the Justice-Integrity Project.

Did Pryor grant Kreig an interview? No, he brushed off that possibility, just as he did when I submitted multiple interview requests before writing the post that broke the gay porn story. Did Pryor respond directly to Kreig with a comment. No, the judge assigned that task to Jennifer Bandy, one of his former law clerks who now works for the Washington, D.C., law firm of Kirkland & Ellis.

What does Jennifer Bandy know about this story? Probably nothing. Why on earth did Bill Pryor choose her to issue a "statement" to Andrew Kreig? I haven't a clue. Did the words come from Bandy or Pryor? We don't know.

Anyway, here is Bill Pryor's "official statement" on the matter, per Andrew Kreig:

"Over the last week, I have been smeared by a widely discredited blogger with a political agenda. His allegations have now been picked up by other bloggers. The person in the unsourced, undated photographs is not me, and I deny these allegations. I have been twice vetted by the FBI, including as recently as this past year; I have won two contested statewide elections; and I have been in the public eye for almost twenty years. I will not dignify these disgraceful accusations with any further comment."

That paragraph raises all sorts of issues, but let's focus on just one for now. Notice that Pryor calls me a "widely discredited blogger." That raises this obvious question: "Discredited by whom?"

It certainly isn't Harper's legal analyst and Columbia University law professor Scott Horton, who has referenced my work. It isn't Kreig himself, a University of Chicago law school graduate who has referenced my posts on scores of occasions. It isn't Alan Colmes, the long-time Fox News political commentator who picked up on my coverage of the Pryor story last week. It isn't David Lat, a Harvard and Yale law grad whose widely read Web site, Above the Law, also picked up on my Pryor coverage last week. It isn't members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, who saw my work cited in a 2007 hearing on political prosecutions of the George W. Bush administration.

If some of the best known and most respected legal and political analysts in the country have not discredited me--and neither have members of Congress--to whom is Bill Pryor referring? It seems clear that Pryor is referring to the individuals behind an alleged lawsuit that Bill Baxley filed on behalf of Jessica Garrison, claiming defamation because of my reporting about the Garrison/Luther Strange extramarital affair.

Jennifer Bandy

I say "alleged lawsuit" because I haven't been served with it, and I haven't seen it. A man who apparently was working as Bill Baxley's process server pounded on our door for an extended period one evening last week, making a point to traipse all over our front yard and around our driveway into the backyard. Mrs. Schnauzer was home by herself, it was dark, and she was not about to answer the door for this strange, thuggish-looking character, but she did watch his actions closely. (Keep in mind, I have received a number of death threats since starting Legal Schnauzer, so we are not prone to opening the door for strangers.)

As I was coming home and about to pull our car into the driveway, my wife saw the man run down our driveway and throw something toward our closing garage door. The man then drove off, without ever saying a word to either of us, without even confirming who lived there or who was home at the time--and we haven't found whatever it was he appeared to throw in our driveway.

Aside from drama over Bill Baxley's failed attempts to serve me, what do we learn from Bill Pryor's official statement to Andrew Kreig?

It tells me that he has jumped in bed with Bill Baxley, Luther Strange, and Jessica Garrison, who are the only people who've made any serious effort to discredit me--even though they can't even get me lawfully served.

What kind of company is Bill Pryor keeping? I addressed that when Andrew Kreig asked if I had any response to the Pryor statement. Here is a portion of my reply on Saturday morning, after Kreig and I had communicated about the Pryor statement last Friday night:

Andrew:

Just a thought on Pryor's statement about me being a "widely discredited blogger." It didn't occur to me last night, but I feel certain that is a reference to the apparent lawsuit that Alabama lawyer Bill Baxley has filed against me . . . over my reporting on the extramarital affair involving Attorney General Luther Strange and his former campaign manager Jessica Medeiros Garrison. I say "apparent lawsuit" because I haven't been served with it and haven't seen it, but I hear it's out there.

The point, though, is that it seems Pryor now has joined an unsavory alliance that has formed in an effort to attack me for reporting accurately about judicial/legal sleaze in Alabama and beyond. This alliance includes a judge who engaged in gay porn (Pryor); a former politician who is a notorious drunk and was caught having an affair with an AP reporter and is known for all sorts of colorful deeds in Las Vegas (Baxley); plus two people who have engaged in financial, professional, and extramarital hanky panky (Strange and Garrison).

I then provided Kreig with some context about what's really going on with Bill Baxley's alliance from hell:

As you report on this, you might want to keep in mind that Jessica Garrison used to work for Pryor (and his No. 1 supporter, Jeff Sessions), and she has called Pryor her mentor. . . . When Garrison couldn't take a job with Big Luther in AG's office because of her divorce/custody case, she landed at the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which Pryor started. How does Garrison live in Birmingham and work at D.C.-based RAGA? (BTW, property records show Garrison bought a $440,000 house in Mountain Brook, Alabama's most prestigious suburb, for $30,000. How did she pull that off? I will be reporting on that soon.)

I know the apparent lawsuit isn't about my coverage of the Strange/Garrison affair, because all parties involved know that is true. But I've been working on 2-3 stories that the lawsuit is designed to shut down. One involves Jessica Garrison's funky real estate deal. Another involves her business ties to a guy name Erik Davis Harp, who was indicted in an offshore illegal gambling ring (Panama) that has ties to Gambino and Genovese crime families. Another involves a major Alabama judicial figure who has issues similar to those involving Pryor.

We have much more coming on this story, but let's consider this for a moment: Many Americans probably assume that men and women who wind up on the federal bench get there because of keen intellects and sharp observational powers.

By aligning himself with Bill Baxley's "Coalition of the Corrupt," Bill Pryor has proven that he's got the intellectual skills and moral acuity of a dead stump. Of course, Pryor was nominated by George W. Bush, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised.

Alan Colmes And His Liberaland Web Site Pick Up On Reports About Gay-Porn Photos Of Judge Bill Pryor

Alan Colmes

One of the nation's best-known liberal commentators is reporting today on our reports about photos of U.S. Circuit Bill Pryor that appeared in the 1990s at a gay porn Web site.

Alan Colmes' Liberland addresses the issue in a post titled "Circuit Court Justice's Gay Porn Site Photo Comes Out Of The Closet."

Colmes perhaps is best known for his 13-year run as co-host of Hannity & Colmes, a nightly political debate show on Fox News Channel. He currently is the host of The Alan Colmes Show, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show distributed by Fox News Radio. Colmes is the author of two books, Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right and Right Is Wrong (2003) and Thank the Liberals For Saving America (2012).

Liberland serves as Colmes blogging base, and the site zeroes in squarely on Bill Pryor. Here is how the post begins:

Earlier this week, provocative Alabama law blogger Roger Shuler posted an interesting tidbit about solidly conservative US Court of Appeals 11th Circuit Justice William Pryor.

The post then quotes from our reports, noting that the photos appeared in 1997 at the Cocoa, Florida-based Web site badpuppy.com and Pryor has a staunchly conservative public record, including opposition to gay rights. More from Liberland:

And, to quote the great George Takei, “Oh, my!” Above the Law, arguably the most popular (and dishy) legal blog in the nation, has picked up the story . . .

Bill Pryor at badpuppy.com

Liberaland then pulls this nugget from the Above the Law (ATL) report:

If true, this would not be the first time that a respected jurist has inadvertently revealed what lies underneath their robes. Judge Wade McCree of Michigan bared it all when one of his sext messages was leaked to the public. Madam Justice A. Lori Douglas blushed red as a Canadian maple leaf when nude photographs of Her Honor engaging in bondage acts surfaced online.

On the other hand, if the gossip that is making the rounds is true, it would likely be the first time that a federal judge seated on one of the United States circuit courts has been caught with his pants around his ankles — or in this case, with no pants at all . . . 

The judge implicated in this affair is William Holcombe Pryor Jr. of the Eleventh Circuit, who also serves on the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Though we have no way to confirm if the accusations are true, we can’t help but notice a possible resemblance between Judge Pryor and the attractive young man in the pictures (meaning that Judge Pryor is quite the judicial superhottie).

Both Liberaland and Above the Law now have reported on the historic nature of our investigative work. Has a federal judge ever been caught with--as ATL puts it--"no pants at all"? Has any national political figure ever been so directly exposed as a blatant hypocrite? 

The answer to the first question clearly is no. On the second one, it's hard to think of any politico who comes off as more of a phony than Pryor.

The story, by the way, is far from over. As Liberaland shows, it's just warming up. We have much more coming on the Pryor story here at Legal Schnauzer.

Nation's No. 1 Legal Blog Shines A Glaring Spotlight On U.S. Judge Bill Pryor's Connections To Gay Porn

The No. 1 legal blog in the country yesterday picked up on our reports about photographs of U.S. Circuit Judge Bill Pryor that appeared in the 1990s at a gay porn Web site.

Above the Law (ATL), founded by Yale Law grad David Lat and based in New York City, helped unmask Pryor with a post titled, "Underneath His Robes: Nude Photos of a Federal Judge?"

ATL's piece didn't do much to advance journalism on the story--in fact, its reporting on the Pryor matter borders on pathetic. But journalism is not ATL's primary purpose. The blog is renowned for its snarky, gossipy take on inside legal news--and its audience of mostly lawyers, judges, legal analysts, and reporters eats it up. The Chicago-based social media/marketing firm Cision ranked Above the Law No. 1 on its 2012 list of the Top 50 Independent Law Blogs in North America.

(Legal Schnauzer ranked No. 37 on that list; best I can tell, we are the only entry not connected to a law firm, university, publishing firm, or interest group.)

Because of ATL's wide reach in legal circles, Bill Pryor must have found the site's coverage particularly painful. Has the Pryor story become the subject of much discussion at law firms, big and small, around the country? Above the Law indicates the answer is yes:

Circles around the water coolers in offices of the federal judiciary are very busy today. It seems that a rumor is circulating about a prominent conservative judge who allegedly posed for nude photographs before heading to law school. The photos, which made their way to badpuppy.com, one of the largest gay pornography sites on the worldwide web, depict a handsome young man staring into the camera, expressionless, his genitalia fully exposed.

Before zeroing in on Pryor, ATL notes that he is not the first judge to face scrutiny because of sex-related missteps:

If true, this would not be the first time that a respected jurist has inadvertently revealed what lies underneath their robes. Judge Wade McCree of Michigan bared it all when one of his sext messages was leaked to the public. Madam Justice A. Lori Douglas blushed red as a Canadian maple leaf when nude photographs of Her Honor engaging in bondage acts surfaced online.

On the other hand, if the gossip that is making the rounds is true, it would likely be the first time that a federal judge seated on one of the United States circuit courts has been caught with his pants around his ankles — or in this case, with no pants at all . . .

Who is this pantless judge? That would be Bill Pryor, the conservative boy wonder from Mobile, Alabama, who now makes his home in the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills--and has his federal duty station at the Hugo Black U.S. Courthouse downtown:

The judge implicated in this affair is William Holcombe Pryor Jr. of the Eleventh Circuit, who also serves on the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Though we have no way to confirm if the accusations are true, we can’t help but notice a resemblance between Judge Pryor and the attractive young man in the pictures (meaning that Judge Pryor is quite the judicial superhottie).

David Lat, by the way, is gay, so that explains ATL's funky approach to the Pryor story, describing him as "quite the judicial superhottie." I would beg to differ with that description of Pryor, but then my perspective is quite different from that of David Lat and his staff.

ATL notes that the story originated with Legal Schnauzer (and yours truly, Roger Shuler), even running one of the photos that we unearthed, providing a discreet black screen over Pryor's genital region. ATL repeats Pryor's assertion to us that the photos are not of him, and then invites readers to decide for themselves.

I get a kick out of ATL's off-center take on legal affairs, and its attention to the Pryor story has got to be a major embarrassment to more than just the featured judge--it's a huge black mark on the entire federal judiciary. I was, however, disappointed with--though not surprised by--the poor journalism on display in the ATL story.

Bill Pryor at ATL

In an apparent effort to be "fair and balanced," Above the Law decided it couldn't report about Bill Pryor's history in gay porn without taking a few swipes at me. ATL reporter Staci Zaretsky points to an attack Web site that calls me a "Cyber Bully" and a "Wannabe Journalist"--never mind that I have a degree from what many professionals consider the No. 1 school of journalism in the country, at the University of Missouri; never mind that I have more than 30 years of professional experience in the field.

Zaretsky also claims I might have an "axe to grind" because I've "lost" a couple of lawsuits in the Eleventh Circuit, Pryor's court.

Here is exactly how ATL addressed these issues:

It’s worth noting that Shuler may have an axe to grind against the judiciary. Other posts on his website refer to federal judges as corrupt, and he’s filed and lost lawsuits in Judge Pryor’s court, the Eleventh Circuit (see here and here). There’s a website dedicated to exposing the supposed truth behind some of Shuler’s scurrilous tales, which notes that he has been sued for defamation and accuses him of being a “Wannabe Journalist, Pseudo Court Commentator and Cyber Bully.”

If Zaretsky had bothered to do the slightest bit of legwork--like picking up the phone and calling me, or sending an e-mail--she would have discovered that, in fact, it's not "worth noting" these issues. And here is why:

(1) Zaretsky's notion that I "may have an axe to grind" should be offensive to anyone, of either gender, who has been victimized and chosen to fight back. Let's apply Zaretsky's thinking to one of the ugliest subjects of all--rape. Imagine a victim who fights back against a rapist with everything she's got--and even proceeds to identify him in court, with all of the stress and blow back that often entails. Does that victim have "an axe to grind" with the man who raped her? Is her axe particularly sharp because she had the audacity to unmask him in a public forum?

(2) Zaretsky provides links to documents from two lawsuits that I've "lost" in the Eleventh Circuit. One was a lawsuit my wife and I filed against debt collectors who violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The other was my First Amendment/age discrimination lawsuit against the University of Alabama Board of Trustees and other defendants connected to UAB, where I worked for almost 20 years before being unlawfully terminated because of my reporting on this blog.

(As regular readers know, that last sentence is not a guess on my part; I have tape-recorded statements from UAB human-resources official Anita Bonasera admitting I was targeted because of my work here about the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. See video at the end of this post.)

Zaretsky tries to make hay over my characterization of several federal judges as "corrupt." But had she bothered to check the case files and relevant law on the two cases cited, she would have found that the judges on those matters did act in a "corrupt" fashion. U.S. District Judge Abdul Kallon butchered the FDCPA case, and as I've reported in a number of posts, that is a matter of public record--it's not just my opinion. The same applies to U.S. District Judge William Acker Jr. and his hatchet job on my UAB case.

Had Zaretsky researched my blog a little bit, she would have found that I've accurately reported the corrupt actions of federal judges on cases that have nothing to do with me. (In fact, only a small percentage of our posts here are about cases involving my wife or me.) Perhaps the best-known examples involve Judge Mark Fuller (Middle District of Alabama) in the Siegelman case and Judge Henry Wingate (Southern District of Mississippi) in the Paul Minor.

Am I a lone whack job, a "disgruntled litigant," howling at the moon by myself about corrupt federal judges? Not exactly. Scott Horton, a Harper's columnist and Columbia University law professor, has written extensively about the unlawful actions of Fuller and Wingate. (See here and here.) Andrew Kreig, a University of Chicago law graduate who is director of the Washington, D.C.-based Justice-Integrity Project, has written numerous reports about Fuller and other corrupt federal judges. (See here and here.) My reports about the Minor case were cited in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's 2007 investigation on Bush-era political prosecutions.

(3) Zaretsky's reference to a Web site that claims it's dedicated to "exposing the truth" about my reporting is an example of lazy, shallow journalism, of the lowest order.

A 30-second glance at the Web site in question would have revealed that its author is so "dedicated" that he doesn't reveal his identity. It also would have shown that the site offers not one citation to fact or law that counters any of my reporting. Most importantly, Zaretsky easily could have found out that the site is sponsored by someone connected to Campus Crest Communities CEO Ted Rollins, and it started in response to my accurate reporting about Rollins' ties to child abuse, perjury, failure to pay child support, and more. That doesn't even include my reporting about a state investigation in North Carolina based on a citizen's complaint about Rollins' possible child sexual abuse of his stepson--the same stepson who was the complainant when Rollins was convicted for assault.

(4) Finally, Zaretsky claims I have been sued for defamation, without bothering to learn that I haven't been served with any such lawsuit. Given that a court takes jurisdiction only when a defendant has been lawfully served, it's difficult for a complaint to get very far without service--and it's a matter of fact that service has not taken place in the alleged legal action against me.

Did Zaretsky make an effort to research any of that? I guess not, apparently because she was too busy referring to Bill Pryor as a "judicial superhottie."

I give Above the Law high marks for building a substantial audience and bringing attention to the Bill Pryor scandal. As for journalism . . . well, the site's performance is dismal in that regard.

Here is just one example of facts ATL chose to ignore in its hurry to appear "fair and balanced" by attacking the reporter who broke the Bill Pryor story:

The Legal Schnauzer Now Is Accepting Donations

Murphy Abigail Shuler:
the schnauzer who
inspired a blog

Since Legal Schnauzer started in June 2007, we have been a strictly nonprofit organization. A more accurate description might be that we've been a "no profit" organization--as in making no money.

But we've decided to join the band of bloggers who attempt to "monetize" their online efforts. Quite a few readers have told us over the years that they would like to provide financial support for our reporting on legal and judicial corruption. My response always has been something like this: "Thank you, but I didn't start this blog with the idea of making money, and I kind of like the purity of spirit that comes with that approach. We appreciate your thoughts, but we don't have a mechanism for generating funds from the blog."

The chorus of folks wanting to help has grown to the point that we've decided to add a PayPal donation button, which now can be found in the upper left-hand corner of the blog. Purity is nice, but our work involves quite a few expenses, and we definitely could use help with those. We have a motivated, intelligent, engaged audience, and it seems quite a few readers feel strongly enough about our work to lay some money down.

Legal Schnauzer has evolved in many ways over the past six years, and this is just the latest example. We recently were ranked No. 37 in an international ranking of the top 50 independent law blogs in North America. When you consider that there probably are several hundred thousand law blogs out there, that makes a pretty powerful statement about the reach and impact of our little enterprise.

Based on my research of the top 50, as determined by the Chicago-based social media/marketing firm Cision, it appears that Legal Schnauzer is the only blog on the list with no affiliation to any law firm, university, publishing firm, or interest group. In other words, we probably are the one truly independent blog on the list--the only one that stands on its own feet, with no supporting institution behind it.

Hopefully, our new donation button will help change that, allowing us to continue providing the kind of accurate, insightful, hard-hitting justice reporting that all-too-often is missing in mainstream publications.

Are we making a difference? Just consider the past two days, and our reports on the photos of U.S. Circuit Judge Bill Pryor that showed up in the 1990s at the gay-porn supersite badpuppy.com. Pryor has been staunchly anti-gay throughout his career, and our reporting has unmasked him as a monumental hypocrite. It also raises serious questions about possible irregularities in the FBI and U.S. Senate investigative process that led to his confirmation under President George W. Bush.

The facts of the Pryor story have been out there since at least 1997, but they remained dormant and under the radar until we launched about a six-month investigation that dug them up. (Schnauzers are known for digging things up.) Leading legal blog Above the Law picked up on the story yesterday, so the public now has insight on the federal judiciary that it didn't have before.

To those of you who decide to click on the button and support us with your hard-earned funds, we say a hearty "thank you." And we say that on behalf of Murphy Abigail Shuler (1993-2004), the beloved schnauzer to whom our work is dedicated.

Please know that our mission statement remains the same: "The memory of a beloved pet inspires one couple's fight against injustice."

Alabama Republican Saw Photos From Gay Porn Site And Quickly Exclaimed, "Holy Cow, That's Bill Pryor!"

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Nude Photographs Of Federal Judge Bill Pryor Appeared In The 1990s On A Gay Pornography Site

U.S. Judge Bill Pryor

(WARNING: This report includes an explicit photograph at the end of the post. The photograph was captured from a gay porn Web site. The photo has been redacted -- with genitals blurred -- to ease concerns about full-frontal male nudity.)

Nude photographs of federal judge Bill Pryor appeared in the 1990s on a gay pornography Web site, a Legal Schnauzer investigation shows.

The photos appeared in 1997 on badpuppy.com, which was in its online infancy, having debuted in mid 1995. Based in Cocoa, Florida, the site has morphed into one of the largest gay porn sites on the Web.

Images obtained by Legal Schnauzer show Pryor posing completely nude, staring into the camera and sporting a noticeable erection. We see no indication that the photos were taken surreptitiously, without Pryor's knowledge. Sources say Pryor was college age when the photos were taken.

Pryor rose to national prominence in Republican circles on the basis of a staunchly conservative record, including consistent opposition to gay rights. He also has supported school prayer and the death penalty, while opposing abortion rights, making him a highly unpopular figure among liberal and progressive interest groups.

A married father of two, Pryor lives in Vestavia Hills and his federal-court duty station is in Alabama, with an office on the ninth floor of the Hugo Black Federal Courthouse in downtown Birmingham. Pryor revealed during his confirmation hearings that he and his wife, Kristan W. Pryor, rescheduled a family vacation to Disney World when they discovered the Orlando, Florida, theme park had scheduled "Gay Days" festivities at the same time as their planned visit.

What is the public to make of revelations that Pryor once was featured on a gay porn Web site? It clearly raises questions about rank hypocrisy, dating to the beginnings of Pryor's political career. It also raises the specter of Pryor being ethically compromised to the point that he is the victim of not-so-subtle blackmail, forced to participate in rulings that he knows are unlawful, at risk of his secrets being revealed. Most importantly, federal nominees typically are asked during the confirmation process about potentially embarrassing or compromising information in their backgrounds. If Pryor failed to disclose the gay-porn photographs, or did not answer a specific question truthfully under oath, it could be grounds for a Senate investigation.

G. Thomas Porteous Jr., a federal judge in Louisiana, was removed from the bench in 2010, and one of the articles of impeachment against him involved charges that he intentionally misled the Senate during his confirmation process.

Alabama law-enforcement officials became aware of the photos at badpuppy.com in 1997, not long before Governor Fob James appointed Pryor attorney general. An investigation ensued, and multiple officials familiar with that process have told Legal Schnauzer that the photos are, in fact, of the Bill Pryor who now sits on the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Sources say the photos were taken while Pryor was a student at Northeast Louisiana University (now University of Louisiana Monroe) from 1980 to 1984.

Legal Schnauzer contacted Judge Pryor last Friday via e-mail, seeking an interview about the photographs and their possible implications for his role on the federal bench. Pryor responded as follows:

I have nothing to say to you except that these accusations are totally false.

Do not contact me again.

Bill Pryor 

I replied by stating that these are not "accusations," they are photographs of an individual that multiple sources have identified as him. I further stated that I had every right, as a citizen and a journalist, to seek comment from a public official with a lifetime appointment, regarding matters of national importance. For good measure, I attached copies of the photographs. Pryor responded as follows:

This is the last time I will respond to you. Those photos are not of me.

Do not contact me again.

Bill Pryor

I informed Pryor that I would include his response in my upcoming series of posts.

A screenshot from a group of photos titled "WizardBoy Gallery #19" shows a head shot of an individual, and beside that is the name "Bill Pryor." It also includes the name "Tom Wander," with links to 15 pictures.

The Pryor photos likely appeared in at least one print publication in the 1980s and remained relatively unknown until an informant provided a tip to investigators with the Alabama Bureau of Investigations (ABI) that they had appeared in the digital world. A number of prominent Republicans became aware of the photos once they hit badpuppy.com, and a major Republican business/political figure confronted Pryor about them, a source tells Legal Schnauzer. The photos disappeared from badpuppy.com one day after that meeting, but ABI investigators already had captured screen shots that are dated September 17, 1997. (One of the screen shots can be viewed at the end of this post. Warning: The screen shot involves full-frontal male nudity, taken from a gay porn site.)

Even though major political figures were aware of the photos, they did not prove to be a hurdle when President George W. Bush nominated Pryor to the federal bench in 2003 and installed him via a recess appointment in February 2004. The staunchly right-wing Pryor was perhaps the most controversial nominee of the Bush presidency. A bipartisan "Gang of 14" U.S. senators reached an agreement to allow an up-or-down vote on Pryor and two other nominees, and they were confirmed by a 53-45 margin on June 9, 2005.

Were the FBI and the Senate Judiciary Committee made aware of Pryor's connections to gay porn during his confirmation process? Our sources say the answer almost certainly is no, and in fact, the photos might have helped him get nominated over numerous conservative candidates who had far more judicial experience in the Eleventh Circuit. Pryor was elected Alabama attorney general in 1998, and was re-elected in 2002, but he had never served in a judicial capacity at the time of his nomination.

Why then was Pryor chosen, when many experts saw Sharon Lovelace Blackburn (now presiding judge in the Northern District of Alabama) as among numerous more qualified candidates? Our sources say high-level Republicans, likely including White House strategist Karl Rove, knew the gay-porn photos put Pryor in a weak position--and they would make him easy to control on the bench. (More on this angle of the story coming in future posts.)

Rove and Republican operative Bill Canary helped manage Pryor's 1998 campaign for attorney general. Pryor went on to become a central figure in perhaps the most notorious political prosecution in American history. As Alabama attorney general, Pryor launched an investigation of Governor Don Siegelman that morphed into a federal probe, under U.S. Attorney Leura Canary (Bill Canary's wife).

Siegelman appeared to have won re-election in 2002 when it was announced late on election night that he held a slight edge over Republican Bob Riley. The race was ultra close in large part because of press coverage about the investigation that Pryor had launched.

Alabamians awoke the next morning to news that votes for Siegelman had disappeared overnight in heavily Republican Baldwin County, shifting the election to Riley. Pryor ordered the ballots sealed and stated that anyone who attempted a recount would be subject to arrest.

Siegelman attempted a political comeback in 2006, and polls showed him as the favorite at one point. But those plans were derailed when the federal investigation led to indictments on corruption charges. The former governor and HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy wound up being convicted on charges many legal experts have characterized as standard political behavior that does not amount to violations of criminal statutes. Multiple appeals from Siegelman and Scrushy have been denied in the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit, where Bill Pryor now sits.

As for badpuppy.com, it was relatively unknown when the Bill Pryor photos appeared there. But the site has exploded in popularity, becoming what appears to be the "Wal-Mart of gay porn." It bills itself as "a massive gay porn supersite," featuring free movies that are recorded and broadcast in high definition.

The site's entry page states that it has "been continuously online since May 17, 1995." Badpuppy was the first gay adult membership site and features both amateur men and professional gay porn stars. The brand hosts 30 additional Web sites that form the "Badpuppy Network."

Badpuppy's operators clearly are in the business of making money, and going by the site's huge presence on the Internet, they must be doing a good job of it. The site's founders probably never imagined they might someday help rattle the American political and judicial landscape. But images from Badpuppy's early days could morph into one of the most shocking judicial scandals in modern American history.

Below is a screen shot of Bill Pryor, captured from badpuppy.com, September 17, 1997.


(To be continued)

Cases Of Ken Nowlin And Penni Tingle In Mississippi Raise Red Flags About Criminal Defense Lawyers

Steven Farese Sr.

The legal "profession" is filled with ugly secrets, and one of the ugliest is this: Quite a few criminal-defense lawyers are more concerned with serving prosecutors' interests than those of their own clients.

Our research indicates this can happen in several ways. One, the defense lawyer will charge a client an outrageous sum and then do relatively little work, putting the accused in danger of being both convicted and financially ruined. Two, the defense lawyer will do little or no discovery that could prove his client's innocence.

We already have touched on this issue in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. G. Douglas Jones, chief defense lawyer in the early stages of the case, charged Siegelman $300,000 and bailed out before taking the case to trial. One of Jones' primary "accomplishments" in the case was agreeing to extend the statute of limitations for prosecutors who admitted they could not prove their case at that point.

Two ongoing cases in Mississippi provide classic examples of how vulnerable a citizen can be when charged with a crime--especially in the murky world of federal, white-collar statutes that tend to be so poorly worded the accused often has no idea if he's actually committed a crime or not.

One of the Mississippi cases involves Ecru insurance broker Ken Nowlin, who became entangled in the kind of Bush-era political drama that is all too familiar to many Alabamians. The other involves Penni Tingle, a former chief financial officer from Hernando who was accused of embezzling funds from IKBI Inc., a general contracting firm owned by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

Lawyers from the Ashland firm of Farese Farese & Farese served as defense counsel in both cases. Nowlin and Tingle now say in court documents that they were pressured to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit. Both also say the Farese lawyers made little or no effort to seek documents that were available and would have proven their innocence.

In Nowlin's case, a letter from an ethics expert would have shown that Nowlin believed his method for paying county supervisor Gary Massey was proper under the law. The letter, Nowlin states, shows that neither he nor Massey had the state of mind required for convictions on corruption charges. Defense lawyer Anthony L. "Tony" Farese, however, insisted the letter did not exist and made no effort to find it, even though court documents state he had information that pointed to both its existence and whereabouts.

In the Tingle case, defense counsel Steven E. Farese Sr. apparently was too busy sexually harassing his client to seek exculpatory evidence in her case. Tingle, a 42-year-old single mom at the time of her sentencing, recently produced copies of text messages that show Steve Farese Sr. engaged in a vile and persistent campaign of sexual harassment against her.

On his firm bio, Farese Sr. is portrayed as quite the big-time lawyer--and a family man, to boot:

Mr. Farese has lectured extensively throughout the United States to trial lawyers on criminal trial techniques. He has handled numerous "high profile" cases and has been interviewed by Vanity Fair. He has also appeared on Prime Time, Court TV, A&E's City Confidential, People Magazine, Nancy Grace, Larry King Live, Greta Van Sustren, and Good Morning America.

Steve and his wife Suzanne have three children, one of whom is Steve Jr., an attorney who practices law in the Farese Law Office. They have five grandchildren.

Did Greta Van Sustren, Nancy Grace, Larry King, and other big timers from cable TV ever think about what it's like to actually be one of Steve Farese Sr.'s clients?  Somehow, we doubt it. But Penni Tingle's text messages reveal Steve Farese Sr. to be a lawyer who was interested in using his client in ways that probably aren't anticipated in Criminal Defense Law 101. Here is just a sampling:

Steve Farese (SF): "I won Best Orgasm Provider for 8 years in a row . . . "

SF: "I think you're hot."

SF: "Do I interest you at all?"

SF: "Would you please come fuck me?"

Now that we know what the Farese law firm seems to be all about, we will take a close look at their actions and inactions that led to Ken Nowlin and Penni Tingle pleading guilty to crimes the record suggests they did not commit.