ORANGE- from www.ocregister.com – Motorcycle mogul Jesse James was in Orange County court this morning, asking a judge to rule on whether his porn-star ex-wife is fit to share custody of their 5-year-old daughter.

James is the owner of the West Coast Choppers motorcycle shop and star of the Discovery Channel show, “Monster Garage.” His former wife, Penthouse model Janine Lindemulder, had been serving a federal prison term for tax evasion.

Both have ties to Orange County. James lives in Sunset Beach with actress Sandra Bullock, whom he married in 2005. Lindemulder is from Huntington Beach, but was residing in a halfway house in Los Angeles at least as late as last month, court documents indicate.

James had full custody of their daughter, Sunny, while Lindemulder served her six-month prison term, court records show. He took Sunny to visit Lindemulder a few times after she moved to the halfway house this summer.

In court filings, though, he asked that Lindemulder prove that she could provide a safe environment for the child. He also asked that she “be restrained from allowing (Sunny) to be around pornographers, drug addicts, guns and firearms, felons and other unsafe environments.”

“Good cause exists,” his court filings say, “for the court to conduct a review when (Lindemulder) is finally released from custody to determine if Sunny will be safe with (Lindemulder) for any custody/visitation times.”

It was not immediately clear whether Court Commissioner Thomas H. Schulte had ruled on James’ request. Attorneys for neither James nor Lindemulder returned phone calls seeking comment.

Lindemulder pleaded guilty last year to intentionally failing to pay her income taxes. Court documents alleged that she owed the Internal Revenue Services nearly $300,000. She was sentenced to six months in a residential corrections center, a term that began in March.

She was re-located to the Los Angeles halfway house in July, James’ court filings indicate. He took their daughter to visit her there in August and again in early September, according to his court filings.

She demanded that he leave Sunny there for three hours during the September visit, then called and asked him to pick her up early, he stated in the court filings.

James and Lindemulder have been arguing in family court since 2003, records show. They divorced in 2004, when Lindemulder was about eight months pregnant with their daughter, her attorney has said. James married Bullock the next year.

In a court income declaration, Lindemulder listed Earl Miller Photography as her current employer and stated that she makes $12 an hour as a set designer there. The front page of the company’s Web site carries a warning: “Contains explicit hardcore sexual images – minors under 18 (or under 21 where applicable) must leave now!”

James described himself as an “extraordinarily high earner” on his income statement but did not provide details.