Spring break? More like a brief flirtation with his old friend Johnny Law.
E! News has learned that Girls Gone Wild mastermind Joe Francis turned himself into custody in Mar Vista, Calif., late Monday after a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Come again?
Pacific Community Police Station officials tell E! News the 38-year-old Francis was booked on a misdemeanor false imprisonment charge and released after posting $50,000 bail.
The Los Angeles City Attorney's Office subsequently issued a press release stating that it has filed three counts of false imprisonment., one count of dissuading a witness from reporting and one count of assault causing great bodily injury.
According to prosecutors, the incident occurred on Jan. 29 when three young women went to the "Supper Club" in Hollywood to celebrate a college graduation. Toward the end of the evening, Francis briefly spoke with the women, then left, only to return after the hot spot closed. He allegedly grabbed one of the women by the hand and took her to his limo. Her friends followed suit and got in, thinking they were getting a ride to their car.
It was at that point, says the D.A., that the porn kingpin's driver bodyguard, Vagram Gegdzhyan, purportedly produced a sheriff's badge impersonating a law enforcement officer and prevented the female victims from leaving.
A physical altercation ensued when the limo reached his residence, whereupon Francis is accused of pulling one of the women away from the others and then grabbing another by the throat and hair. Shortly afterward, the women claim,they were escorted off the property and told by Francis & Co. that if they called the cops, they wouldn't pay for a taxi. Ultimately, the women did get a cab and called 911 as soon as they were safely away.
Gegdzhyan faces additional counts of impersonation of a public officer with intimidation and one count of fraudulently using a badge.
If convicted on all counts, Francis could face up to five years in jail and his bodyguard up to six years. Arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 16, 2011.
For his part, Francis tells E! News he's innocent of all charges, called the whole thing "politically motivated," and intends to sue the women for defamation.
"We pulled over. I told them no violence in the car. One girl was fighting and saying they weren't getting out. It's the most ridiculous thing because this hurts my name," the soft-core pioneer said. "It's a self-fulfilling prophecy and I am sick of it. I'm going after the city attorney for being irresponsible and [showing a] reckless disregard for the truth. He chooses to ignore the eyewitnesses and security cameras. How he's going to get around that, I don't know."
Francis added: "I'm tired of my name being dragged in the mud. People will read this stuff and believe it...This [the fight] was the most classless, ghetto, crazy thing I have ever seen. As disgusting as girls could ever be. I'm embarrassed that I had them in my car. The girls were in their 20s, college grads."
Several witnesses to the incident backed up Joe's account, among them Mark Rousso, who said the girls were fighting among each other and "Joe tried to stop them."
Francis said he's going to go after the women "for everything they have."
Good luck with that.
Francis, who amicably split last December from his entertainment reporter wife Christina McLarty after less than two months of not so weded bliss, turned up without a date at Kim Kardashian's wedding Saturday night.
Itt's probably best the Girls purveyor doesn't get too tied down, considering his ever-growing rap sheet, including guilty pleas for filing false tax returns and violating record-keeping laws for failing to prevent underage girls from appearing in his raunchy videos.
—Reporting by Sharareh Drury and Ken Baker