Girls Gone Wild Founder to Return to Florida
Monday, March 10th, 2008(AP) A federal judge in Reno has authorized “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis be released from a Nevada jail so he can go back to Florida and answer charges there stemming from a five-year-old case involving the filming of underage girls. His lawyer told U.S. Magistrate Robert McQuaid that Francis was to fly to the East Coast on Tuesday, and appear in a Panama City, Florida., courtroom the following day to resolve the charges from the 2003 filming of girls during spring break.
During a brief hearing Monday, defense lawyer Fred Atcheson gave the court a $1.5 million cashier’s check to cover Francis’ bail on tax evasion charges, and assured the judge other previous release conditions would be met. Francis, has been jailed on both sides of the country for nearly a year, caught in a tug-of-war between federal prosecutors in Nevada and state attorneys in Florida, where he still faces four felonies and two misdemeanors related to the 2003 filming.