US Judge Recuses Self From Obscenity Case After Personal Website Controversy

A US Judge has recused himself from an obscenity trial in Los Angeles following the admission that he had been maintaining his own website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos.

In an interview with the latimes.com, Alex Kozinski acknowledged the fact that his website contained sexually explicit material including a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man “cavorting” with a sexually aroused farm animal.

Kozinski is presiding over the trial of Ira Isaacs, a New York filmmaker who describes himself as a “shock artist” and is being charged with making criminally obscene fetish videos.

The judge on Friday recused himself from the trial on Friday saying that in light of the controversy surrounding his website he felt he should no longer participate in the case.

"In light of public controversy surrounding my involvement in this case, I have concluded that there is manifest necessity to declare a mistrial. I recuse myself from further participation in the case."

Kozinski claims that he wasn’t aware his website was publicly accessible and that some of the contents he didn’t remember uploading were probably put on the website by his son, Yale. He then told the times that his son called him and said he had uploaded “a bunch of it”.

Ira Isaacs told the nydailynews that he feels terrible about what the judge is going through.

"Because of my trial, he has to deal with this crap. I feel terrible. I wasn’t bargaining for anybody else to get hurt."