Obscenity Charge Vs. Texas Woman Dropped

July 18, 2004 01:16 AM EDT

CLEBURNE, Texas - An obscenity charge has been dropped against a woman who received nationwide attention when she was arrested for selling two sex toys to undercover police officers posing as a couple. A judge dismissed the case against Joanne Webb, Johnson County Attorney Bill Moore said Friday in a statement. He said he asked the judge for the dismissal to prevent wasting county resources, but didn't say when the dismissal occurred. No one answered the phone at Moore's office Saturday morning.

Webb, a former fifth-grade teacher, started selling erotic toys and other adult products last year. The Passion Parties Inc. consultant hosts what she calls Tupperware-type parties for suburban housewives who feel more comfortable buying marital aids in a private home than at an adult bookstore or on the Internet. Webb was arrested Nov. 13, about a month after the undercover officers approached her at her husband's business in Burleson, about 10 miles south of Fort Worth, and bought two products. Had she been convicted of violating Texas' obscenity law, she could have been sentenced to a year in jail.

Webb's attorney, BeAnn Sisemore, said she and her client are pleased with the dismissal. "We knew that it was a possibility, but we weren't contacted," she told the Cleburne Times-Review for its Sunday edition. According to the state's obscenity code, an obscene device is a simulated sexual organ or an item designed to stimulate the genitals. Adult stores get around the law by posting signs that say "sold only as novelties."

Moore said a pending federal lawsuit filed by Sisemore would determine the constitutionality of the obscenity statute Webb was accused of violating.