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<br /> I- <br /> I Ii /S<J <br /> Ie Although It IS clear that organized crime is involved to some degree in the' <br /> pornography industry, various sources reach different conclusions as to the depth and <br /> extent of this involvement. Part of the difference in assessment is based on differences . <br /> I in the way the term "organized crime" is defined. Authorities who restrict their <br /> definition of organized crime to the highly organized ethnic hierarchy known as La Cosa <br /> I Nostra (LCN) tend to find fewer links than those who define the term to include other <br /> organized criminal enterprises. Where there has been intensive law enforcement and <br /> 1 prosecution, it is more likely that linkage between sexually oriented businesses and <br /> I <br /> ~ <br /> organized crime figures will be evident. <br /> ~ The Working Group has adopted the definition of organized crime contained in <br /> Minnesota's Report of the Legislative Commission on Organized Crime (1975). The <br /> ~ Working Group is concerned about the relation between sexually oriented businesses <br /> and any "organized criminal conspiracy of two or more persons that is continuous in <br /> ~ nature, involves activity generally crossing jurisdictional lines and results in third-party <br /> profit." The threat from organized crime includes, but is not limited to involvement of <br /> national crime enterprises such as LCN. <br /> ~. <br /> Recent federal indictments of James G. Hafiz in Indiana for pe~ury1l and. of <br /> , Harry V. Mohney in Michigan for tax evasion suggest a possible connection between <br /> organized crime and a Minnesota pornography business. Hafiz, a Minnesota resident <br /> who is an agent of Beverly Theater, Inc., the company which operated the Faust <br /> Theater in St. Paul,g/ has been linked to Mohney, a major pornographer based in <br /> Michigan. The indictments allege that Mohney caused the incorporation of the <br /> company which operated the Faust, that a corporation owned by Mohney paid for <br /> improvements to the Faust and that Mohney is, in fact, the owner of numerous sexually <br /> oriented businesses, including the Faust. (See United States v. Hafiz, Indictment, No. <br /> IP 88-102-CR (S.D. Ind., Sept. 15, 1988); United States v. Mohney, Indictment, No. <br /> 88-50062 (E.D. Mich. Sept. 9, 1988)). <br /> 11 HafIZ was acquitted of the perjury charges. St. Paul Pioneer Press, Jan. 11, 1989, p. <br /> 10A. <br /> g/ The City of St. Paul bought out the Faust for $1.8 milliqn, closing the entertainment <br /> complex on March 7, 1989. <br /> -15- <br /> -- -- <br />