How the word 'porn' threatened to end Center City collapse trial
A slip of the tongue, a threatened mistrial
It was called the Forum Theatre and from 1975 until 2012 it was synonymous with porn: Philadelphia's best-known and, ultimately, last "Triple X" adult movie house.
Say the name fast and Forum almost sounds like porn.
And that's what threatened to end the three-week-old civil trial involving the deadly 2013 building collapse that crushed the Salvation Army thrift store in Center City, killing six and injuring 13.
The Forum Theatre property at 2208 Market St. – the building and land, not the business – was owned by New York real estate speculator Richard Basciano and one of his several holding companies. In December 2012, Basciano ended the lease with the theater operator and announced that it and four other vacant, rundown properties in the 2100 block of Market would be demolished to make way for his planned "Gateway Project" – two residential towers and ground-level retail and commercial space.
The Forum went down and so did 2130, 2132 and 2134 Market and the public and city officials rejoiced. Then, on June 5, 2013, an unbraced three- to four-story brick wall remaining from the Hoagie City building at 2136-38 Market toppled and crushed the Salvation Army's adjacent one-story thrift store at 22nd and Market Streets.
The Gateway project evaporated and the 91-year-old Basciano sold his properties. Two men were criminally convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to long prison terms. What's left is the trial of consolidated lawsuits for money damages filed against Basciano and his companies, the Salvation Army and several others.
Enter ghost of the Forum Theatre. For three days, ending Monday, the jury listened to a nine-hour-long video excerpt of several days of sworn deposition testimony by Griffin Campbell. Campbell, 52, the North Philadelphia contractor STB hired to demolish the five Basciano buildings, couldn't be there in person because he's serving a 15- to 30-year prison term for his criminal conviction in the collapse.
Twice in those three days, Campbell, in referring to the razing of the Forum Theatre, called it the "porn theater." Or, at least that's the way it sounded.
Lawyers for Basciano and STB immediately asked for a mistrial, arguing that the jury was now tainted and would hold it against Basciano and STB if they believed he was running a pornographic movie theater.
STB attorney Peter A. Greiner argued that the jury would have looked more kindly on his clients if Campbell had called them cocaine addicts.
Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina was skeptical about that: "One is illegal and the other is not."
On Monday, Sarmina denied the mistrial motion, saying that two uses of the word "porn" in a nine-hour video did not warrant a mistrial. The judge then instructed the jury – without mentioning the word porn – that they may have heard Campbell refer to the "nature of the businesses" on the demolition site. The judge said the businesses operated before STB and Basciano bought the properties and "have nothing to do with the issues in this trial."
Ironically, Basciano made much of his fortune in the pornography business in Manhattan, operating Show World a 16,700-square-foot "sex emporium" in Times Square that once led the New York Times to dub him the city's "King of Porn." Basciano got out of the adult entertainment business in 2004.