LOS ANGELES -- Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt -- his mouth stuffed with a wad of gauze and tape wrapped around his head -- was wheeled before a federal judge and sentenced to a 15 month prison term for contempt of court.
During a six-hour courtroom appearance ending Tuesday night, Flynt unleashed a constant stream of obscenities and hurled an orange at the prosecutor. More prison time was tagged on to the original six-month sentence.
U.S. District Judge Manuel Real had ordered the publisher to prison for six months for a Dec. 12 outburst before U.S. Magistrate James McMahon.
Real then slapped the paraplegic publisher with a series of 30-day terms, totalling 15 months, for periodically screaming obscenities during Tuesday's hearing.
At one point, Real ordered Flynt forcibly removed from the courtroom. Flynt was brought back later into court with gauze stuffed in his mouth and tape wrapped around his head.
When he entered the courtroom earlier, Flynt had two oranges in his lap. He threw one at prosecutor James Walsh, but it narrowly missed him and slammed instead into the jury box. Federal marshals grabbed the second orange.
Monday, U.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall ignored Flynt's cursing and screaming and judged him competent to stand trial on charges he desecrated an American flag by wearing it to court as a diaper.
Flynt protested that decision before Real Tuesday with a string of wildly contradictory statements and displays of emotion. Real ignored Flynt's two tearful outbursts, saying the publisher was 'doing it on purpose.'
Flynt insisted he was mentally incompetent when he cursed at McMahon and asked for the right to challenge the prison psychiatric report on which Ms. Marshall based her judgment.
He pleaded that he was upset the morning of the hearing because he claimed his 14-year-old daughter had been gang-raped by his security guards and because two of his 'close friends' -- Ruth Carter Stapleton and model Vicki Morgan -- had died.
Flynt also argued that he was broke and could not afford to pay his attorney, David Kahn, but Real ruled he had the money to pay a lawyer.
