The decision to publish the charged movies and a movie trailer to the jury was made in a response motion by Justice Department attorneys on Friday. Prosecutors said that they will allow the viewing of movies "during cross-examination of the government's witnesses or during the defendants' case-in-chief."
The government's decision to allow the videos has been a sticking point for the defense for some time. Stagliano attorneys Allan Gelbard and Paul Cambria were not immediately available for comment to XBIZ on the latest development.
Last month, Stagliano's attorneys asked the federal judge in the trial to require jurors view each of the DVDs and video clips.
Federal prosecutors, according to earlier court motions, were seeking permission to show a portion of each video to the jury in open court, rather than show the jury the entire bodies of work.
They were proposing to allow the federal case agent to present oral summaries of the videos and to read aloud the films’ descriptions from the Evil Angel website.
Stagliano's counsel said at the time that alleviating the government's burden by not showing the films in entirety could "potentially open up the possibility of a mistrial and unnecessary appeals."
In related news, the Justice Department said it will add Matthew Buzzeli of the Obscenity Prosection Task Force as an attorney for the prosecution in the case.
The obscenity trial, expected to last two weeks, begins in Washington on July 7.
Stagliano and his companies — Evil Angel Productions Inc. and John Stagliano Inc. — are charged with seven counts for illegal possession, distribution and sale of two videos sent through the mail — "Milk Nymphos" and "Storm Squirters 2 'Target Practice'" — and a trailer of "Fetish Fanatic Chapter 5" shown on the Internet.
Stagliano faces a maximum of 32 years in jail and $7 million in fines if convicted on all counts.
