Could Rob Lowe's past mess with Paul Reubens' future?
Lowe's infamous homemade video featuring the future West Winger engaged in the body politic with two females, one of whom was underage, is one of the potential pieces of evidence in the child-porn case against Reubens.
Reubens, better known by his kid-TV alter ego of Pee-wee Herman, was booked November 15 on suspicion of possessing material depicting under-18 types engaged in compromising positions. He has pleaded innocent to the charge, a misdemeanor.
In court Friday, Reubens' camp earned a February 10 hearing to challenge the validity of the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office evidence. (Technically, to get the hearing, his attorney must file a formal challenge by January 24.) The 50-year-old actor was not present for the day's formalities. He remains free on $20,000 bail.
Earlier on Friday, attorney Harvey Levin, executive producer of the infotainment show, Celebrity Justice, claimed on CNN that the Lowe tape was part of the case against Reubens. But the city attorney's office said that while the Lowe tape was seized, along with thousands of other items from the actor's Hollywood Hills home during a November 2001 search, it is not one of two videos that, along with "dozens" of photos depicting children in "sexual positions," Reubens is formally charged with possessing.
"This is a child-porn case," said Matt Littman, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office. "This is not the Rob Lowe case."
Levin also told CNN that erotica pictures, some "30, 40, 50, 100 years old," were part of the booty seized from Reubens' house. At the time he was charged, the actor's attorney, Blair Berk, said her client had never "knowingly possessed" any "improper" artwork. A source has even suggested that some of the confiscated pics were so old that they would have been legal to possess at the time of their manufacture. But the city attorney's office said that the photos Reubens is being charged with having were never legal.
If convicted, Reubens, who had spent a decade rebuilding his career following a bust for indecent exposure at an X-rated theater in Florida in 1991, faces up to one year in county jail, and a $2,500 fine.
While the Rob Lowe tape has surfaced in the Reubens case, the star of the tape himself never faced charges (although the mother of the girl did sue).
Lowe, now 38, was a Brat Pack member in good standing when, in 1989, a video depicting his extracurricular activities during the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta first surfaced, the resulting scandal putting more drag on his already stalling film career. Lowe, who'll depart his comeback gig on The West Wing later this season, settled the matter with the girl's mother out of court, and performed community service as part of the deal.
Police allegedly found a copy of the Lowe tape at Reubens' house while investigating a now-discounted complaint lodged against the erstwhile Pee-wee by a 14-year-old boy.
At the time of the search, Reubens' rep said that the actor has a "substantial collection of erotic art, but he has a lot of collections," including 3-D cameras. Said the flack: "His house is like a museum."
Los Angeles County prosecutors declined to pursue the case as a felony, leaving it to their city counterparts to go for the misdemeanor.
The charge against Reubens was filed one day after Ferris Bueller's Day Off star Jeffrey Jones was arrested on suspicion of hiring a 14-year-old boy to pose for sexually explicit photos. In addition to that felony charge, Jones, 55, faces a misdemeanor count of possessing child pornography.
Jones, who, like Reubens, is free on $20,000 bail, is due to be arraigned January 9.
Prosecutors have called the Reubens and Jones cases unrelated, though stemming from the same investigation.
Reubens, a Saturday morning TV star for CBS from 1986-1990 on the surreal (and Emmy-winning) Pee-wee's Playhouse, dropped the childlike Pee-wee persona following his porno theater bust. As all-grown up Paul Reubens, the actor has appeared in films such as Blow and Mystery Men.