Store Employee Faces Felony Charge for Selling 2 Live Crew Album

SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) _ A 19-year-old record store employee was arrested on a felony charge Thursday for selling a copy of the controversial rap album ″As Nasty As They Wanna Be″ to an 11-year-old girl.

Chauncey Reese, an employee at Sarasota’s ″Tracks″ record store, may be one of the first people arrested in Florida for selling the recording by the Miami group 2 Live Crew, said Sarasota Police spokesman Russ Nugent.

″I’m just glad that someone has decided to do something, whatever it takes, to keep this trash out of the hands of minors. I’m just elated,″ said the girl’s mother, Ann Skolnick.

Reese, who is accused of selling the Miami rap group’s tape to the girl in January, was taken into custody at 3 p.m. Thursday after police investigated a complaint by the girl’s mother. He was later released on his own recognizance.

″She felt that the lyrics were obscene and had no business being listened to by her 11-year-old daughter,″ said Nugent. He did not know of any other such arrest in the state involving the rap group’s recordings.

The state attorney’s office decided to charge Reese with one felony count of selling harmful materials to minors, rather than a misdemeanor obscenity charge, which would call for less jail time and a smaller fine, Nugent said.

The double-album was pulled from store shelves across the state after Gov. Bob Martinez asked a state prosecutor to consider branding the record obscene. The prosecutor later said that ruling would have to come from local officials.

A judge in Broward County said there was probable cause to rule the record obscene, and deputies there told store owners they would be prosecuted if they didn’t pull it off their shelves.

A sanitized version of the record, titled ″As Clean as They Wanna Be,″ is still carried by many stores, but sales have lagged behind the ″Nasty″ version.

Telephone messages left late Thursday at Reese’s home were not immediately returned.