Store Clerk On Trial For Selling Adult Toys

Police Charge Worker With Obscenity For Possessing Sex Toys

UPDATED: 3:19 pm EDT October 12, 2005

HOUSTON -- A Houston store clerk could face up to a year in prison because of the provocative items being sold on a north Houston store's shelves.

Houston police charged Jose Escalante with obscenity because he was in possession of adult toys with the intent to promote and sell them. If convicted, Escalante could face up to a year in prison and a $4,000 fine.

Escalante is an employee of the Adult Video Megaplex location on Interstate 45 in north Houston. The store sells items that are considered obscene because they are designed to be used in a sexual act.

On June 9, vice officers with the Houston Police Department arrested Escalante at the store and seized some of the toys.

Richard Kuniansky, Escalante's attorney, said thinks the case is ridiculous.

"He's simply a clerk at the store, and the vice squad went in and arrested a clerk for possession with intent to distribute obscene devices. It's absurd," Kuniansky said.

The defense asked an officer who testified Tuesday to define what makes an adult toy obscene since there were numerous items being sold at the store that were not confiscated.

The officer said an adult toy is obscene if it is contained in a package with a label that indicates the toy is designed to be used in a sexual act.

Many of the adult toys not confiscated from the store are advertised as massagers.


Adult Video Store, Houston

"These devices are for sale all over town, at passion parties, and some of the establishments do put on the devices that it is intended for novelty only. In my opinion, that means nothing," Kuniansky said.

Kuniansky told KPRC-TV in Houston that he believes his client was unfairly singled out.

However, prosecutors said the law is the law, and that anyone caught in possession of six or more adult toys deemed obscene by the law is presumed to be promoting them and could be arrested.

Although Escalante has said he was only a store clerk, prosecutors have said he was a store manager, meaning he was in possession of all of the products being sold in the store.
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How boring IS sex in Texas, anyhow?

I really wish my state would step in and stop the scourge of that is the pocket pu$$y. I can't tell you how many lives have been ruined by that bastion to society.

Sorry B but if you need toys to make sex exciting you may not be doing it right.

Just because you can't handle Ben & Jerry's Coffee! Coffee! Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! doesn't mean we all have to like fat-free vanilla.

They should let that dude open a sex shop in Amsterdam, he'd love it over there...

Seriously, though, just when did a state get the right to tell people they couldn't use a sex toy just because it (get this) advertised that it was for sexual use rather than a massager?

Texans, how do you feel about your tax dollars being spent prosecuting this man?

Texans, how do you feel about your tax dollars being spent prosecuting this man?

I have seen sex toys for sale at multiple locations around Texas so they certainly are not illegal. Maybe it is some sort of Houston law I do not know about, or one of those old cryptic state laws that is never enforced. Maybe it cannot say, "this toy is for vaginal or penal insertion." But penis shaped foot massagers are fine.

Are you sure they were sex toys? Maybe there were for "novelty use only."

I guess they could be for novelty purposes only, but I sincerely doubt people are using their exact replica of Jenna Jamesons vagina as a cereal bowl.