LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- "Girls Gone Wild" chief Joe Francis admitted in U.S. court in Los Angeles to not recording the ages of girls who flashed their breasts for his video cameras.
Francis entered into a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department, which had been investigating whether minors appeared in Francis' soft-core porn videos, The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
Francis earlier admitted girls under the age of 21 lied about their ages and ended up in at least two of his sexually explicit DVDs. However, he was not charged with the sexual exploitation of children, the Times said.
Instead, he pleaded guilty to two counts of not recording the names and ages of all the participants in his films as required by federal law, the newspaper said.
The plea deal called for Francis to pay $500,000 in fines.
A similar Panama City, Fla., case against Francis' Mantra Films Inc., resulted in a guilty plea to 10 felony counts and fines totaling $1.6 million.
