Girls Gone Wild maker to be jailed

LA Times reports:

A federal judge in Panama City, Fla., on Thursday ordered "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis jailed for contempt of court in a civil suit brought by seven young women who claimed the entrepreneur's film crews had placed them in sexually explicit situations.

Francis, the Santa Monica-based multimillionaire who has made a fortune selling risque videos of scantily clad coeds, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak to surrender to court by noon Thursday, but hadn't done so by mid-evening.

Francis told the Associated Press late Thursday that Smoak "had lost his mind."

"This judge has gone as far as to call me the devil and an evildoer," he said. "It is a case of a judge gone wild." ...

Smoak ordered Francis jailed if an accord had not been reached in the case by Saturday, but he suspended that order when it appeared that a deal had been struck.

At an emergency hearing Wednesday, a lawyer for the plaintiffs told the judge that he thought the case was resolved but then learned Francis had altered the offer, making it unacceptable to his clients.

I never heard of a defendant being jailed because he refused to agree to a settlement.