SHREVEPORT, La. – The organizer and promoter of an annual music festival was arrested Friday on charges accusing him of arranging on-stage sex acts and then selling DVDs of the acts and of nude onstage dancing during the Freaknik festival July 30.
Benson Bell, 34, of Shreveport was booked with obscenity and money laundering – making money from illegal acts, the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office said.
“What consenting adults do in private is not our concern,” Sheriff Steve Prator said. “However, oral sex exhibitions in public for profit is our concern, and we will take action against this lewd and disgusting behavior.”
The festival, held 25 miles north of Shreveport in Gilliam, has included music, car shows and thong contests in previous years. This past summer, according to sheriff’s office spokeswoman Cindy Chadwick, two men were chosen from the audience of more than 200 to participate in oral sex with a woman, believed to have been part of the production.
An undercover deputy bought a DVD of the event, which Chadwick said also included nude dancing, for $10 from a booth rented by Bell at a Shreveport barber shop. The DVD was titled “Raw, Uncut Version of Freaknik 2K6.”
The DVD sales were the basis of the money-laundering charge.
State District Judge Eugene Bryson signed an arrest warrant and a subpoena for Bell’s bank records.
Detectives were working to identify the individuals who participated in the public sex acts, Chadwick said.