Image Source: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What Was the Accusation?
Actor and comedian Paul Reubens, best known for creating and portraying the children’s television character Pee-wee Herman, faced intense public scrutiny after his July 26, 1991 arrest at the South Trails Cinema, an adult movie theater in Sarasota, Florida. Sheriff’s deputies alleged that they saw Reubens masturbating inside the theater and charged him with indecent exposure. The accusation became a national celebrity scandal because Reubens was so closely associated with the childlike Pee-wee persona. CBS subsequently removed scheduled reruns of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Reubens maintained his innocence but, on November 7, 1991, pleaded no contest as part of an agreement that required a $50 fine, court costs, 75 hours of community service, and production of an anti-drug public service announcement. His attorney described the resolution as a plea of convenience rather than an admission that the allegation was true.
Reubens encountered another legal controversy a decade later after police searched his Los Angeles home in 2001 and seized material from his extensive collection of vintage photographs, films, magazines, artwork, and memorabilia. He was charged in 2002 with misdemeanor possession of material that prosecutors alleged improperly depicted minors. Reubens and his attorney disputed the prosecution’s characterization of the collection. In March 2004, prosecutors dropped the more serious child-pornography charges under a plea agreement in which Reubens pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor obscenity charge. He received a $100 fine and three years of informal probation. Reubens said that accepting responsibility for a small number of images categorized as obscene was preferable to continuing what he regarded as a costly and highly publicized legal battle.
Reubens returned to both controversies at length in a September 2010 Playboy interview with journalist Bill Zehme. Regarding the 1991 arrest, Reubens again denied the central allegation and argued that the police report contained evidence supporting his innocence. He said the report described him masturbating with his left hand even though he was right-handed and said his defense had prepared expert testimony concerning that discrepancy. He also revisited the later obscenity case and defended his collection as art and historical erotica that had been publicly mischaracterized. The interview therefore functioned primarily as a retrospective defense of Reubens’s reputation rather than an expression of remorse for the accusations against him.
Key Apologia Strategies:
Denial, Attacking the Accuser, Minimization
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Transcript
Paul Reubens / Defense Attorney Richard Gerstein — November 7, 1991 — Excerpt:
Following Reubens’s no-contest plea, defense attorney Richard Gerstein described the resolution this way:
“This was simply a plea of convenience. It was time for Mr. Reubens to get on with his life and his career.”
Paul Reubens Statement — March 2004 — Excerpt:
After prosecutors dismissed the child-pornography charges and Reubens resolved the case with a misdemeanor obscenity plea, he stated:
“Taking responsibility by calling a few images in this collection ‘obscene’ and paying a $100 fine seemed like the sanest way to make it end.”
Paul Reubens Interview with Bill Zehme for Playboy — September 2010 — Excerpts:
“Had we gone to trial, we had ready an expert from the Masters and Johnson Institute who was going to testify that in 30 years of research on masturbation, the institute had never found one person who masturbated with his or her nondominant hand,” Reubens revealed. “I’m right-handed, and the police report said I was (masturbating) with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn’t have been me.”
“The police had been given a false tip in an alleged sting operation and came to my house,” Reubens explained. “They thought the wrong thing, and they were there for the wrong reason, and when that became clear, they should have left. Or they should have taken all my computers like they did but spent three minutes looking through them and realized they were wrong. … The state eventually realized I had nothing offensive, but the city attorney decided to put me through three years of hell anyway.”
“At the time people said, ‘The public has such a short memory,’ ” he said. “I knew it wasn’t true. The public has a memory like a steel trap. In some people’s minds I somehow retain this reputation of being a pervert. When you look me up on almost any website — IMDb or Wikipedia or anything — that insane allegation of child pornography is on there. Much as I like to pretend it’s not there or imagine most people know nothing about that one, it’s there. It’s always going to be a footnote. But you know what? At this point the footnote is neither here nor there for me. It has no effect on me. I’m cool with it.”
