BARBOURVILLE, Kentucky – An anticipated court fight in Knox County over obscenity charges ended quietly this month with a guilty plea.

Jeree Mills, owner of a store called Dreamworld that sells such adult materials as pornographic magazines and videos and sex toys, pleaded guilty to a single charge of distributing obscene material. The charge is a misdemeanor.

Mills received the maximum fine of $250 and 90 days in jail. The jail time was probated for a year, according to Knox County Attorney Charley Green Dixon, who prosecuted.

Mills, who is in her late 50s, also agreed to close her store from 2 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays so it won’t be open during church time.

Knox County deputies arrested Mills and an employee, Belinda Brown, soon after Dreamworld opened in May on busy U.S. 25E just outside Corbin. The store was the largest and most visible of its type in southern Kentucky.

Knox County church groups and nearby residents decried the opening of the business, saying they feared it would drive down property values, worsen the problem of addiction to pornography and increase victimization of children and women.

A woman who managed the store at the time, however, said Dreamworld didn’t offer any product that people couldn’t already get. And Dreamworld’s attorney, H. Louis Sirkin of Cincinnati, argued in court documents that the store had a legal right to sell adult products.

Mills predicted she would have won on appeal should she have been convicted by a local jury.

However, she said she decided to plead guilty and end the case because the plea deal was satisfactory to both sides, ending with a conviction but her store still open.

“I didn’t give up any of my First Amendment rights,” Mills said. “We plan to stay in business.”

The charge against Brown was dismissed as part of the plea arrangement.

Dixon said the plea deal brings the maximum penalty and a criminal conviction that other towns with ordinances regulating adult businesses could cite to deny a license to Mills.

Two dozen opponents of the store attended court. They prayed outside the courthouse after watching Mills plead guilty, thanking God for the outcome.

The Rev. Leonard Lester, who pastors a Barbourville church and helped lead opposition to Mills’ store, said he was satisfied Mills had been prosecuted as far as the law allows. But he said church members would push legislators to up the stakes on distributing obscene material, making it a felony.

“If we’re serious about protecting our community, we want teeth” in the law, Lester said.