Indiana Prosecutor Gets A Clue, Drops Whole Redbox Deal

The Indiana Prosecutor that threatened businesses leasing space to movie rental vending machines last week with a Class D felony has decided not to follow through on that.

After receiving a number of phone calls, e-mails and talking with people, Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Stan Levco said Friday he has decided not to prosecute stores over the rental of movies for mature audiences from kiosks such as redbox and moviecube.

"It's not an exact barometer — I didn't take a poll — but it just seemed pretty clear to me that the community would not be behind the prosecution of this," Levco said Friday during a news conference at his office.

"That wasn't the only factor, but it certainly was a factor."...
Levco said, normally, community sentiment is not a deciding factor in whether to prosecute a case. During the course of his research, he said, in some communities the kiosks have been removed.

"In this case, the criminal statute says the offending material must violate community standards. Originally, I didn't think this was going to attract any attention. I just thought it was a routine matter. I originally thought the way it was going to be resolved was the videos would be removed. But as I got further in, I realized that was not going to be the case."

Levco said he was first contacted about the issue in December by a representative of local video stores, and the investigation continued in January. The complainer's position was that video stores check identification to ensure that minors were not viewing the material, but the kiosks may not, Levco said.

[via Courier-Press]