Celebrity Mound

Prosecutors have charged “Girls Gone Wild” creator Joseph Francis with assault, false imprisonment and other misdemeanor crimes for allegedly attacking a woman he met at a Hollywood club, but the businessman said he has witnesses and evidence that will exonerate him.

The charges filed against Francis and his bodyguard stem from an alleged January altercation that began when three women got into his limousine outside a popular nightspot. Prosecutors claim the women thought they were being driven to their car but were taken to Francis’ gated home, where a struggle ensued and he allegedly slammed one woman’s head on a tile floor.

He faces to five years in jail if convicted, but Francis said in a phone interview Tuesday that he is innocent.

He said he has eight eyewitnesses who will testify on his behalf and security footage from three cameras.

“This did not happen,” he said.

He claimed that police and the district attorney’s office rejected filing charges against him, but that City Attorney Carmen Trutanich is pursuing the case for political reasons.

District Attorney’s spokeswoman Jane Robison said county prosecutors declined to file felony charges against Francis in late July, but referred the case to Trutanich’s office for possible misdemeanor charges.

Francis said Trutanich is trying to prosecute him because the city attorney is considering a run for higher office, a claim that spokesman Frank Mateljan denies. “We filed charges based on the facts in the police report and nothing else,” he said.

Trutanich has not yet announced whether he will run for district attorney, but his name has been floated as a possible candidate.

“He is dead in the water,” Francis said. “He is going to get embarrassed.”

Francis’ friend, Mark Rousso, said he was in the limo with the women, and that two of them started fighting with each other on the way to Francis’ home.

“It was the other way around,” Rousso said. “Joe was trying to stop it.”

Another woman, Madi Matichak, said she first met Francis at the club on the night of the incident and that the soft-porn mogul was upstairs when the girls resumed their fight in the driveway of his home.

Francis’ bodyguard, Vagram Gegdzhyan, had offered to give them a ride home but called them a cab after one of the women hit him, Matichak said.

Both Francis and Gegdzhyan turned themselves in to police on Monday and were freed on bail. They were scheduled to appear for an arraignment on Sept. 16.

Gegdzhyan, who is also accused of impersonating a peace officer after allegedly flashing a sheriff’s deputy’s badge in the limo, could be jailed for up to six years if convicted.

In 2008, Francis pleaded no contest to child abuse and prostitution charges in Florida after spending nearly a year in jail. He later won a civil case filed by women who claimed he had caused them emotional distress by making them flash their breasts for some of his “Girls Gone Wild” videos.

The following year he was sentenced to time served and a year of probation after pleading guilty to filing false income tax returns and bribing Nevada jail workers.

Girls Gone Wild boss Joe Francis has run into trouble with the law again – his production company allegedly owes more than $113,000 to the IRS in unpaid taxes.

Authorities at America’s Internal Revenue Service filed a $113,128 lien against the soft-core porn director’s Mantra Films, the parent company of Girls Gone Wild, at the Los Angeles County Recorder of Deeds in November.

The demand is for delinquent federal taxes from 2003, according to The Detroit News.

The filmmaker’s woes continue to mount – last week, he was indicted by a grand jury over the $2 million he allegedly owes to Las Vegas casino boss Steve Wynn, who has charged Francis with felony theft and fraud.

Say it ain’t so, Joe. Lady-loving “Girls Gone Wild” tycoon Joe Francis — who never met a teenage beauty he didn’t want to get naked — is getting hitched.

Francis, 37, proposed to Los Angeles’ CBS News Entertainment Reporter Christina McLarty — niece of Mack McLarty, former White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton — while vacationing in St. Tropez. But it won’t be a traditional wedding.

“We have chosen to have a civil domestic partnership because we don’t believe it’s appropriate to be married until our gay and lesbian friends are afforded the same rights as us to legally marry in the United States,” Francis said.

The couple have been dating on and off for nearly four years, during which Francis — who spent 339 days in jail battling various charges in Florida and Nevada — also went to court against Steve Wynn over a $2 million gambling debt, and the IRS, which seized $100 million from his bank accounts.

The gorgeous McLarty, who started her TV career in Texas, raised eyebrows two years ago when she appeared onstage in Las Vegas in a skimpy showgirl costume for a segment on Sin City nightlife.

The proposal to McLarty was obviously made on impulse. Asked about the ring, Francis said, “We’re having one made.”

The happy lovebirds were giddily planning the ceremony with 200 guests for sometime in September at Casa Aramara, Francis’ lavish beachfront estate in Punta Mita, Mexico.

Francis revealed, “The weekend will be fun, luxurious and filled with lots of surprises.” Quincy Jones, his longtime neighbor in Bel Air, will serve as best man. “This will be a nontraditional celebration of love, family and friends,” Francis said.

A judge ordered no prison time Monday for the final defendant in a bribery scheme that allowed “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis to dine on sushi and watch “The Office” and “Family Guy” DVDs while jailed in Nevada on tax charges.

U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks sentenced ex-law officer Mary Boxx to 100 hours community service, three years probation and a $1,680 fine after she pleaded guilty to accepting a gratuity as a public official.

The maximum possible penalty for the crime was two years in prison. Corrections officials had recommended Boxx serve at least four months house arrest.

Boxx tearfully apologized to the judge for the “nightmare” she had put her family through during the past two years.

He agreed to let her move to New York so she can help care for her five grandchildren, including one with autism, because her daughter’s husband is about to be deployed to Afghanistan.

Hicks refused a request to waive the fine, saying Boxx was part of a team that embarrassed the jail and “created a black eye on law enforcement.”

As part of a plea agreement, Boxx, 54, admitted that while working as an inmate classification specialist at the Washoe County jail, she smuggled in special tanning lotion requested by Francis as well as DVDs.

However, the Sparks woman said she never connected that to the $1,680 worth of cash and gifts she received from a Hollywood associate of Francis, the creator of the soft porn empire worth millions.

“I really had no idea. But I know ignorance of the law is no excuse,” Boxx said.

The gifts included an airplane ticket to visit her grandchildren in New York, a television and entertainment center and $1,000 in cash the associate, Aaron Weinstein, said she should hold in case Francis needed it.

“He may have been trying to compromise her, but he never said I’m going to give you a TV if you do this. There was no quid pro quo,” said lawyer Robert Walker, who represents Boxx.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Rachow said prosecutors never claimed Boxx was a bad person.

“But she made a bad decision,” he said “The decision was a crime, and there are consequences for decisions. … She knew what she was doing was wrong.”

A federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced Francis in November to 301 days already served and a year of probation for filing false income tax returns and bribing jail workers in Nevada.

Weinstein pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge of providing contraband in prison and was fined $5,000.

Weinstein also admitted providing ex-Washoe County deputy Ralph Hawkins with $3,200 in cash and four tickets to an Oakland Raiders football game. Hawkins pleaded guilty, was fined $4,000 and sentenced to three years probation.

Francis was a high-profile inmate when he arrived at the Nevada jail in June 2007 and soon transferred into the mental health unit because jail officials feared for his safety. The area features less stringent supervision.

“He was a very demanding inmate,” Walker said. “He made a lot of complaints and irritated a lot of people.”

Boxx met with Francis several times a week. They walked together in the jail exercise yard and eventually became friends, Walker said.

Boxx brought him tanning lotion he couldn’t get in the jail commissary. She said the DVDs were not delivered directly to Francis but instead placed in a secure drawer where other inmates could ask to view them.