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While Clean Flicks Media's lawsuit against Daniel Dean Thompson has a long way to go, Thompson can take solace that the state's criminal case against him is nearing an end.
Thompson, the owner of the now-defunct Flix Club edited movie store, pleaded no contest Friday in American Fork's 4th District Court to reduced charges stemming from an incident in which he and his business partner were accused of paying two 14-year-old girls for oral sex. Thompson, 31, pleaded no contest to two counts of sexual battery, a class A misdemeanor. The charges were reduced from unlawful sexual activity with a minor, a third-degree felony. Prosecutors also agreed to drop a misdemeanor charge of patronizing a prostitute as part of the plea deal.
"The conduct justifies misdemeanors, and that's what we pleaded no contest to," said defense attorney Doug Neilsen.
The plea deal comes less than a month after Thompson's co-defendant, Isaac R. Lifferth, was sentenced. Lifferth pleaded guilty in June to two counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor, one count of patronizing a prostitute and one count of possession of a controlled substance. Judge David Mortensen sentenced Lifferth to 270 days in jail and 36 months of probation.
Each count of sexual battery carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $2,500 fine. Mortensen scheduled Thompson's sentencing hearing for Aug. 29.
Thompson and Lifferth were arrested in January after a 14-year-old girl told her mother that an older man paid her and a friend $20 for oral sex. According to Orem police, the two girls asked a friend if she knew anyone who would be willing to pay for sex, and the friend put them in contact with Lifferth, who paid them each for oral sex and later took them to the Flix Club store in Orem and paid them another $20 to perform oral sex on Thompson. Thompson told police that he asked the girls if they were 18, and they said yes.
When police searched the store, they also found dozens of pornographic movies, and the girls told police that Thompson told them that Flix Club was a front for producing pornography.
Deputy county attorney Mariane O'Bryant said the lesser charges were appropriate because Thompson was not as involved in the case as Lifferth.
"It was the other defendant who made all the arrangements. From what everybody said, (Thompson) had asked, and the girls had told him that they were 18, and he had no idea that they were being paid. The girls and the other defendant seem to all agree that that was the case," she said.
With his sentencing set for next month, Thompson's charges are nearly behind him. But he still faces a federal lawsuit from CleanFlicks, the patriarch of Utah's edited movie industry. CleanFlicks accused Thompson of using the company's names to sell edited videos at his store. Following the arrest, CleanFlicks said Thompson has no connections to its company. A trial date has been set in the lawsuit for Aug. 2008.
Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or
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