Pedophilia guide’s author faces obscenity charges

PUEBLO, Colo. – A Colorado man who wrote a how-to guide for pedophiles was arrested Monday and sent to Florida to face obscenity charges, after deputies there ordered a copy of the book that has generated online outrage.

Officers arrested Phillip R. Greaves at his home in Pueblo on a warrant that charges him with violating Florida’s obscenity law. During a brief court appearance, Greaves waived his right to fight extradition and was transferred to Polk County, Fla.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said he claimed jurisdiction because Greaves sold and mailed his book directly to undercover deputies, who had written the author a letter requesting a copy. Judd said Greaves even signed the book.

“I was outraged by the content,” Judd told the Associated Press. “It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children.”

The self-published book – “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct” – caused a flap when it showed up on Amazon in November. The book was later removed from the site.

Greaves, who has no criminal record, writes in the book that pedophiles are misunderstood, as the word literally means to love a child. He adds it is only a crime to act on sexual impulses toward children, and offers advice that purportedly allows pedophiles to abide by the law.

The book, Judd said, included first-person descriptions of sexual encounters, purportedly written from a child’s point of view.

Florida’ obscenity law – a third-degree felony – prohibits the “distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.”

Legal experts questioned whether Greaves’ right to free speech would come into play if there’s a trial. If prosecutors can charge Greaves for shipping his book, they ask, what would prevent booksellers from facing prosecution for selling Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” a novel about a pedophile?

“As bad as this book may be, the charge opens a very big Pandora’s box,” said Dennis J. Kenney, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.