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March 31, 2016

Adult Store Owner Sues Competitors For Ordering His Store Burned

VANCOUVER, Wash.—Back in 2003, Levi Bussanich had a pretty good business going at Desire Video, located at 4811 NE 94th Avenue, selling XXX-rated DVDs, novelties and other items of interest to open-minded adults. But all that changed on March 27 of that year, when arsonists Mark Fuston and Ken Courtney torched the place—yet managed to stay out of prison until Courtney turned state's evidence and implicated Fuston, who received a two-and-a-half year prison sentence in 2013. But with Courtney having allegedly committed suicide, now that Fuston has been convicted, it's he who's doing the singing. He's implicated Daniel and Donna Cossette and Michael J. and Linda M. Wright in a conspiracy that led to the arson, leading Bussanich to file a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, charging the Cossettes, Wrights and the bookstores they own under several sections of the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, as well as Criminal Profiteering, trespassing and property damage as a result of the arson. Police spent a decade investigating the case, eventually getting the goods on Courtney, who then acted in an undercover capacity to help prosecutors build the case against Fuston, as well as providing information on the Cossettes and Wrights. In the meantime, in 2005, Bussanich inquired about buying Adult Video Only, Inc., which was owned by the Cossettes and Wrights, and in the course of getting a tour of the store, learned that Adult Video Only was doing a great arcade business—and that according to Bussanich, little or none of that income was being reported on the store's tax returns. The same was apparently true of other adult businesses that the defendants owned. It's that allegation that is the basis for the RICO charges: Bussanich claims that the defendants used the unreported arcade funds to pay the arsonists who burned Desire. Well, that, and the allegation that the defendants also had a profitable marijuana growing business whose income also was not reported, some of which funds were also allegedly used to pay Fuston and Courtney. "This was definitely not a case of unrestrained moral outrage or some misguided attempt to protect the community from pornography or the social ills that can be connected to that industry," Fuston's prosecutor argued in court. "Rather, Mark Fuston's singular goal was to get paid." According to a report on Vice.com, "Fuston had been wrapped up in porn mayhem before: In 1977, the career criminal was charged with trying to burn down an adult bookstore, but got off even though cops found him holding a gas can and matches at the scene. And in 1991, a man who looked an awful lot like Fuston was spotted near a Portland porn store just before it burst into flames, courtesy of a pipe bomb." Bussanich managed to rebuild his store, which reopened under the name Taboo Video and continues to do business in Vancouver to this day. The whole scenario is reminiscent of the adult industry's early days, when a few top moguls were alleged to have burned down competitors' businesses to increase their profits—but that had stopped by the early 1980s, so it's sad to see that there are still places where such practices had continued into the new century. A copy of the lawsuit can be found here.

 
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