Judge who posted sexually explicit photos on his website offers to consider recusing himself from obscenity trial

Alex Kozinski, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge who posted photos of extreme sexual fetishes on his website, has offered to entertain motions to recuse himself from an obscenity trial, says Scott Glover, who broke the story on our website this morning. (And for some background on Kozinski, click here.)

Kozinski is presiding over the obscenity trial of Hollywood filmmaker Ira Isaacs, who is accused of distributing criminally obscene sexual fetish videos depicting bestiality and defecation.

Prosecutors said all they wanted was for jurors to be admonished to disregard publicity in the case. Defense attorney Roger Diamond made no objection to Kozinski continuing to hear the case, which began with opening statements this morning.

This afternoon jurors were taken to the appeals court’s offices in Pasadena to view three videos at issue in Issacs’ trial.

Kozinski says the website is now blocked, but savvy webheads have found some of the material on archive.org. And that's all we've got to say about that.

More about today's developments in a full story to come.

--Veronique de Turenne