Businessman leads town in campaign against pornography

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August 2000; Volume 24 Issue 7

Businessman leads town in campaign against pornography

Jim Koeting knows how to fight porn in O'Fallon, Missouri: elect the right people to public office.

Two years ago, Koeting helped get the St. Charles County's chief prosecutor, Jack Banas, elected by a margin of less than 100 votes. Koeting said the deciding ballots resulted from the issue of pornography. "We made it an issue and it decided the race," said Koeting.

Koeting, founder and president of Missouri Citizens Against Pornography, said his political involvement is now paying off in the form of obscenity charges being filed against the owners of the Family Video chain, which has a store in O'Fallon. Family Video is the nation's largest family-owned video rental business, with 145 stores in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio and Indiana.

"It's ironic that a business that deals in hard-core pornography would be named Family Video," he said.

Koeting, who helped local law enforcement officials secure evidence needed for the indictments, said, "Banas promised during his campaign to prosecute illegal pornography."

On June 6, Banas charged the national video rental chain with three counts of promoting obscenity, a Class A misdemeanor. The owners of the Family Video chain now face fines of up to $3,000 and three years in jail.