Now he himself will be imprisoned. Because that’s how our awesome justice system works. So I can’t think of a person in America who is grosser than Joe Francis. After making millions in the 1990s with Girls Gone Wild (before Internet porn was a thing and people were so desperate to see titties that they’d pay money for videotapes of them), he quickly rocketed to the center of Hollywood’s human garbage scene, dating such all-time winners as Paris Hilton and Tara Reid. He also got into a lot of trouble, with multiple lawsuits filed against him and the company for filming girls without their consent. In 2012, casino owner Steve Wynn won a $19 million judgment against Francis for slander. So dude’s not very stable, shall we say.
It should come as no surprise that Francis had trouble with women in his personal life as well. In 2011, three women came to the police and claimed that Joe Francis had met them at a nightclub and offered to drive them to their car, only to instead basically kidnap them and take them to his Hollywood home, where he refused to let them leave. When one tried to escape, he grabbed her by the hair and bashed her head into a tile floor. Of course, he denied everything, but the truth will always come out.
TMZ is reporting that the conviction came down today, and Francis was found guilty of assault, false imprisonment and dissuading a witness from reporting a crime. The charges combined could give Francis as much as five straight years in prison. Considering that he’s a repeat offender, having spent time in jail before on a variety of charges, it’s likely that he’ll get the full sentence.
In 2013, Girls Gone Wild finally died as well, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It’s unknown what the company will do with the warehouses full of unwatched DVDs. Maybe Joe Francis can make a house out of them when he gets out of jail.