Can Perez Hilton Go to Jail for Chuy Porn Video?

Gossip columnist posts a naughty video of an E! sidekick—how serious is this?

Big fan of Chuy, big fan of Perez Hilton, but I read Hilton could go to jail for that Chuy porn video he posted. Any truth to that?
—LisaK, Maine via the Answer B!tch inbox

You speak of a very NSFW video involving two little people—one of whom is Chelsea Handler's sidekick, Chuy Bravo, plus a lady on what is supposed to be a beach, indulging in activities that one might loosely describe as body surfing.

Perez has embedded the very adult material on his site in a manner that is, my research indicates, illegal. As in, up-to-five-years-in-jail illegal.

So will the columnist who everyone loves to hate have a date in the gray-bar hotel? Well...

...not likely, industry and legal experts tell me. It's complicated, but here goes the explaining.

Under a federal law loosely known as U.S. Code 2257, people who post post porn online also have to provide a link to certain information.

The linked site needs to, in essence, provide documentation that the porn was made legally and didn't involve minors. There are some other disclaimers that could also work in compliance with 2257, but the point is, if you're going to post porn, federal law requires you to link to some compliance information or explain why you're not.

That 2257 compliance info, last time I checked, doesn't appear with Hilton's Chuy post.

I reached out to the U.S. attorney general, who wouldn't weigh in on this. Neither would Perez.

But I did get the scoop from Adult Video News columnist Tom Hymes—who has written about the Perez issue and who also is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against U.S.C. 2257. Hymes tells me that if the law wanted to go after Perez, they would have him "dead to rights"—but it isn't likely.

For one, a federal official—not a local cop—would have to review Hilton's post and decide to do something.

"But the Justice Department isn't doing 2257 inspections right now," Hymes says. "They haven't been doing them for about six or nine months. I don't think this issue is going to have much legs."

Legs. Right. Or any other, um, appendage.