Watching Porn In Your Car In A Public Lot Is Illegal, Court Rules

If you plan to watch porn on a mobile device in your own car, you’d better be sure no one else can see or hear what’s on your screen. That’s what 53-year-old David J. Lomanto of  Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, found out in 2017 when he was convicted on an obscenity charge for watching porn on his iPad while seated in his own vehicle. And on Tuesday, an appeals court upheld his conviction, according to an NBC News report.  It was all the way back on April 22, 2014, when Lomanto was seated in his own car in the parking lot of a local fast food joint, viewing porn clips on his iPad, when a woman visiting the restaurant with her 12-year-old son said that she could see what was happening on-screen and "heard moaning on the video." Lomanto had his driver’s side window rolled down, according to court documents.  The mom was sitting in her own car, peering into Lomanto’s car, when she saw, “a ‘woman with blond hair’ performing oral sex" on a man and then "having sex ... after that,” according to the court records. She also “saw a penis” on the screen as she continued to spy on Lomanto’s porn viewing.  But the 12-year-old was already inside the fast food restaurant and was not exposed to the online porn.  When the cops arrived two hours later, Lomanto was still there, still watching porn with his window rolled down. After the police obtained a search warrant, they found that the man has been sitting in the parking lot for four full hours, watching porn by piggybacking off the fast food restaurant’s WiFi network. Lomanto was convicted of “public communication of obscenity,” as well as obstruction charges because he refused to get out of his car or provide his ID when first approached by the police officers. The New Jersey man then appealed the conviction, arguing that the “public communication” law was unconstitutional, because it was “overly broad,” and infringed on his rights to engage in lawful conduct in the privacy of his own vehicle. A state appellate court disagreed, and on Tuesday, upheld Lomanto’s conviction. "While our courts have repeatedly acknowledged an individual's privacy interest in the contents of their automobile, we have never extended the zone of privacy to what occurs inside a car that is in plain view," the judges wrote in their decision. The judges also ruled that “watching pornography in public serves no legitimate purpose.” Doing so with his windows down in a fast food parking lot also “recklessly” exposed children to the adult content, the judges said.  Photo By Benson Kua / Wikimedia Commons