Girls Gone Wild founder Francis cops a plea
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‘Girls Gone Wild’ founder Joe Francis took a plea deal on charges of filing false tax returns and agreed to pay back $249,705 to the government.
According to the Associated Press, Francis also took a plea on a charge of bribing Nevada jail workers in exchange for food while he was serving time there. The deal came only weeks before a trial, the AP said, adding that Francis will receive credit for time served (about 10 months) with sentencing set for Nov. 6.
In a statement, Francis thanked Judge James Otero and noted that he has a lot of catching up to do at work. ‘Demand for the Girls Gone Wild brand has grown tremendously in the past 12 years and we have a lot of work to do,’ he said. He also thanked his legal team for putting up with him. ‘The one thing I’ve learned about myself during this process is that I can be a difficult client.’
Of course, readers of Claire Hoffman’s famous Los Angeles Times expose on Francis already know that ‘difficult’ may be a kind way of describing the soft-porn mogul.
-- Joe Flint
