Trial to gauge what L.A. sees as obscene

Most of the cases were brought in relatively conservative areas of the country, five of them in Texas.

Whether jurors in Southern California have more lenient views on obscenity will be tested at Isaacs' trial.

Federal agents raided Isaacs' Koreatown office in January 2007. Isaacs said he was told by authorities that the investigation was initiated after a local person complained, and was eventually turned over to the task force in Washington.

He is now facing charges related to the importation, transportation and distribution of obscene material in connection with four videos he was selling over the Internet, including the one he produced. Isaacs admits to producing that film and to distributing all four.

But he denies that they're obscene.

"That's for the jury to decide," he said.

He said that prosecutors have made several overtures inviting him to take a plea in the case, but that he has refused every time.

Pleading guilty would be admitting that he was just another pornographer, he said.

"If I get convicted and go to prison now," Isaacs said, "I go as an artist."

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scott.glover@latimes.com