The Press: Obscenity’s Price

For the last six months, Ralph Ginzburg, 34, publisher of Eros, a hardcover quarterly “devoted to the joys of love,” has prudently held up distribution of Eros’s fifth issue. Convicted on 28 charges of mailing obscenity (TIME, June 21), Ginzburg was waiting to hear what sentence the judge would hand down. Last week in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, Ginzburg heard some harsh words. Judge Ralph C. Body sentenced Eros’s publisher to five years in federal prison and fined him and his three publishing firms $42,000.

Besides Eros, Ginzburg also published a scatological newsletter called Liaison and a book, The Housewife’s Handbook on Selective Promiscuity, written by a promiscuous housewife. U.S. District Attorney Drew J. T. O’Keefe agreed with the defense contention that Ginzburg was not the ordinary, back-alley sort of smut-peddler. “He’s worse,” said O’Keefe, and asked the court for “the most substantial sentence it possibly can give.” Ginzburg said he would appeal.