By Adrianne Jeffries
The Verge
BestGore.com is a vile website for videos of gang executions, women being tortured, body parts being maimed — anything to turn people’s stomachs. The content is revolting and a lot of it is real. But does Mark Marek, Best Gore’s 38-year-old owner, deserve to go to jail?
In May, Best Gore published a video entitled “1 Lunatic 1 Icepick,” which showed a gruesome 10-minute murder. “1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick is without a doubt the sickest thing you will have ever seen in your entire life,” Marek wrote at the time.
The clip showed the actual murder of Lin Jun, a 33-year-old engineering student from China, carried out by a psychopath who distributed the video online and then mailed the victim’s body parts to political parties. Murder trial proceedings for the suspected killer, a man who goes by the name Luka Magnotta, will begin in November.
In the meantime, authorities in Canada have decided to charge Marek as well. The website owner has been accused of what sounds like an Oscar Wilde-era crime: “corrupting morals,” a 1949 law that can carry a jail sentence of two years and potentially much higher.
The law says anyone who “makes, prints, publishes, distributes, circulates, or has in his possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation any obscene written matter, picture, model, phonograph record or other thing whatever” may be indicted for a crime. According to case law, material becomes “obscene” when it mixes sex with violence or degradation. The law also covers “disgusting objects,” “indecent shows,” and advertisements for abortion methods.
“It’s a very rare charge,” says Laurie Wood, Marek’s lawyer. “I can only find a half dozen cases.”
Full story: Should you go to jail for posting video of a real murder?