Arrest Warrant Issued for Ex-owner of Sex Site

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Source: Mercury News

By: Howard Mintz

The former owner of sex.com, stripped of his lucrative porn portal last November, is now considered an international fugitive.

In a highly unusual move in a civil proceeding, a San Jose federal judge on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Stephen Cohen, who apparently has defied repeated court orders to relinquish millions of dollars he has earned from sex.com — a domain name he is accused of stealing. U.S. District Judge James Ware ordered Cohen jailed because he repeatedly has failed to show up for court appearances in a lawsuit against him and defied instructions to relinquish his sex.com-related assets.

At this point, it is unclear whether U.S. marshals will be able to get their hands on Cohen, who had been living in Mexico and whose whereabouts now are unknown. Cohen’s lawyers recently filed court documents claiming he was being detained by police in Mexico, but the judge dismissed the excuse as “unsubstantiated.”