Reuben Sturman(1924-1997)

Reuben Sturman was known as one of the pioneering porn producers in the industry. He began his career in Cleveland, Ohio, distributing 8mm loops and adult magazines, and expanded his empire to cover the entire US, eventually moving his base of operations to Las Vegas and then to the Los Angeles area. He became the focus of prosecution by the US Justice Department, which claimed that he was the #1 producer and distributor of pornography in the US and closely linked to many organized-crime families. He was tried on numerous occasions throughout the 1980s on obscenity charges, but they all ended in either mistrials, dismissals, acquittals, or his convictions were overturned on appeal. In 1989 he was convicted of attempting to obstruct the Internal Revenue Service, and in 1992 he plea-bargained in an extortion case and received prison sentences totaling 29 years. He died in a federal penitentiary in Kentucky of natural causes in 1997.