Judge says no porn at next month's Traffic Court trial

SORRY, SMUT FANS.

There will be no mention of the word "pornographic" - as in pornographic videos - at the trial next month of six former Traffic Court judges and two businessmen accused of participating in a wide-ranging ticket-fixing scheme.

One defendant, businessman Henry "Eddie" Alfano, is accused of giving a former Traffic Court judge, Fortunato Perri Sr., gifts in exchange for fixing tickets - things like free seafood, free car repairs and adult sex tapes.

Jeffrey M. Miller, one of Alfano's attorneys, told a federal judge at a pretrial motions hearing yesterday that Alfano was willing to agree that he gave Perri videotapes, but did not want the type of tapes mentioned before a jury.

The feds, Miller said, want to tell jurors the "tapes were pornographic. . . . Nothing could probably inflame the passions of the jury more" than knowing these were sex tapes, he added.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Denise Wolf told U.S. District Judge Robert Kelly that the government should be allowed to mention at trial that these were porn tapes. "There will be evidence there were 20 or 30 videos given over a couple of years," she said.

"Judge Perri enjoyed them for whatever reason," she said.

"These are not Disney movies," she said. "These were adult pornographic movies that he [Perri] could not get in any other way" than secretly through Alfano.

"It shows the quid pro quo and the conspiracy between them," she argued.

"We certainly agree on one thing," Miller said. "They are not Disney movies."

The judge ruled that telling the jury "the nature of these videos" would be "unfair," and ordered that the government not mention that the videos were pornographic.

Perri and two suburban magistrates who heard Philly Traffic Court cases pleaded guilty last year to their roles in the alleged ticket-fixing scandal. William Hird, former court administrator, pleaded guilty in January.

The trial for the remaining defendants will begin May 19.