‘Girls Gone Wild’ Founder Claims Judge Retaliated for Impeachment Effort

Legal Ethics

‘Girls Gone Wild’ Founder Claims Judge Retaliated for Impeachment Effort

Posted Mar 26, 2008, 08:46 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Raunchy-video king Joe Francis claims a federal judge is retaliating against him for looking into the possibility of impeachment.

Francis, the founder of "Girls Gone Wild," claims he is being targeted by U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak, the Associated Press reports. The judge oversaw a civil case filed by women who sought damages for appearing in Francis’ videos while underage. The suit settled after Smoak ordered Francis jailed for making a threat during a deposition.

Francis claims that a new lawsuit filed by a former law partner of Smoak’s is retribution for impeachment discussions with a consultant. Florida lawyer Ross McCloy represents the plaintiffs in the new suit, and also was the lawyer in the previous suit.

Francis had asked Smoak to recuse himself in the prior suit because of his past relationship with McCloy, to no avail. "We asked three times for the judge to recuse himself in front of his ex-law partner and he refused," Francis told AP.

Francis called the new suit "Shakedown Part 2."

The writer of a GQ profile of Francis concludes that his troubles aren’t completely related to his underage videos. Instead, the profile says, Francis is in trouble because he is “incapable of backing down in a fight with another man, even if that man is a district court judge.”

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