Gary Kremen Profile

[gonzo]

San Jose Mercury News Profiles Gary Kremen
San Jose Mercury News reporter Chris O'Brien (COBrien@sjmercury.com) is working on a major profile of sex.com owner Gary Kremen.
A few months ago, Chris stayed with Kremen and his attorney Sue Whatley at Steve Cohen's old house (Cohen stole the sex.com domain name from Kremen in 1995) in northern San Diego County.
Chris might turn his profile into a book on the sex.com drama.
Was that really Gary Kremen who unraveled on Oprano.com's messageboard Tuesday night? I don't think so. Or was it Cohen impersonating Kremen? Gary does have a vocabulary similar to the posts under his name. Cohen aka Jack Brownfield also has an awesome vocabulary. The posts under Kremen's name were bizarre. I doubt they were really from Gary.
Steve Cohen's appeal was turned down last week in San Jose. Gary won hands down. He keeps Cohen's house and he keeps the domain sex.com. Cohen can't come back to the United States unless he pays Kremen a minimum of $25 million. Not likely.
XXX says: Chris O'Brien is a great guy. He spent days with Kremen. You've got to meet Gary in person. He's brilliant. I don't think there's anyone smarter in the adult business. He's nice. Is Kremen smart when it comes to the porn internet? No. He hasn't made any money yet from sex.com and everybody in the smut biz sneers at him because of it, which must bug Gary to no end.
Gary has more than his share of demons. A year ago, he was addicted to crystal methamphetamine. While he was in its grip, he blew off a lot of important people in the adult biz, like Ron Levi, who now won't take a meeting with Kremen.
Kremen is an MBA. He knows how to take companies public. He's not a pornographer. He pissed off a lot of people when he was on meth. When you're on drugs and you're crazy, you tend to insult a lot of people without realizing it.
Kremen now operates sex.com himself. He's not making any money at it, which is why he gets a lot of heat from internet pornographers. They call him a failure. I can't believe you took a domain like that and screwed it up so much. It's hurtful to him. It bothers him.
Should he just turn it over to Ron Levi and take a cut? No. Ron won't do it anymore.
It won't be easy to get an interview with John Bennett of CEN. He's low key, private and prefers to just operate his business and avoid controversy.
Why don't you write something about Serge? There are so many great stories there. He has a checkered past you wouldn't believe.
Ask about the glory hole incident. There was a criminal charge.
Serge is into anal. Read what he writes on the boards. He's into some kinky backdoor stuff. He's into enemas. He's hetero but very interesting and funny.
XXX says: "I do not have many people to badmouth other than Serge, and MikeAI, both spineless bastards. Of course Serge took MikeAI under his wing when MikeAI was experiencing financial difficulties from his fledgling amateur empire. I know nothing of [Serge and glory holes], but I would pay for the content. We have always known Serge is scum, heck he admits it. I am more disappointed in MikeAI turning to the dark side. I opened my house to him... and then he goes off with Serge."
Reuters reports: Because Steven Cohen's a fugitive from justice, a federal appeals court judge has rejected Cohen's appeal in the landmark $65 million sex.com case. "It's a pretty resounding ruling," attorney James Wagstaffe, who represented plaintiff Gary Kremen in the five- year battle over one of the most valuable addresses in cyberspace, said today. "This decision sends a message -- that fugitives can't continue to use our legal system."
The brief decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal by Cohen in light of his status as a fugitive from justice and "egregious abuse of the litigation process."
The court did not make a ruling involving co-defendant Network Solutions, now a part of VeriSign Inc. the main registry of ".com" addresses, although a decision on that part of the case is expected in several months.
In April 2001, a federal judge handed down a $65 million judgment against Cohen, hitting him for $40 million in compensation for lost profits and an additional $25 million in punitive damages in the largest judgment ever in a cyber-squatting case. U.S. District Judge James Ware found Stephen Cohen liable for fraud and forgery, and ordered that a warrant issued for Cohen's arrest remain in effect until he surrenders all of his property to the court.
Cohen, who has previously served time in federal prison for bankruptcy fraud and impersonating an attorney, lives in Tijuana, Mexico, and has shielded his multimillion dollar fortune by stashing it in offshore accounts, lawyers said.
Gary Kremen, who had the foresight to register the sex.com web address in 1994 and regained control of the site after November 2000, now runs it as a "portal" with a search engine for adult content on the Internet. "Unlike Cohen we are not a pay site, we don't make content, we don't sell pictures," Kremen said Tuesday, adding that advertising on the site helped to pay the bills.



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