How Paris Hilton helped solve a crime

FREE VIDEO The robbery Joe Francis describes the home invasion, robbery, and embarrassing videotape made at gunpoint at his Bel-Air mansion one night in January 2004. Dateline NBC

Joe Francis: It was absolutely terrifying. It really was.

What happened to Joe Francis late at night that January 22^nd, you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.Though there must be lots of people who might like to do Francis some serious harm.

A few fathers, for example...

To understand this story you need to know that this clean cut, handsome young man got obscenely rich by inventing the video series called “Girls Gone Wild.” 

Some people feel that what happens on these videos is also obscene:  Francis and his cameramen persuading young, often inebriated women, to expose themselves and even have sex with each other.

A few women have gone public with claims that they were forced to do things they didn’t want to do. Some of the accusations have made their way into court,  though they don’t seem to have tweaked his conscience.

Francis: I’ve been a target of lawsuits and a target of litigation and other accusations and ridiculous things in the past.

Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: Well, yeah, although some people say they’re not so ridiculous.  I mean I don’t wanna get back into that—

Francis: Yeah—yeah.

Morrison: —argument.  But, I mean, underage girls?  C’mon?  What are you doing?

Francis: Well, some girl showing a fake ID?  If somebody shows you a fake ID, you have every reason to believe that they’re that age. 

Though he has fought off most of  the allegations,  Joe and his company plead guilty to violating a federal law designed to prevent pornographers from working with people under 18. 

And, whatever his legal woes may be, they certainly haven’t held back the "Girls Gone Wild" juggernaut.

How many videos has Joe Francis sold? Enough to have a state of the art production office in Santa Monica and a mansion at the very peak of establishment Bel Air just up the road from Nancy Reagan. Enough for Ferraris, Bentleys, Picassos, two private jets, and friends like Paris Hilton.

And Joe isn’t shy about what his money has bought him— everybody knew. A few too many people knew.

An intruder in his home
It was just after midnight. Francis had come up the long drive to his gated mansion, parked his Bentley, and walked to the front door.

Francis: I walked in here, yeah, and someone came out of this door. And yeah, a guy comes out of there from behind me.  And puts me here on the floor.

The intruder had a gun and was wearing a mask. He tied Joe’s hands behind his back...

Francis: And I lay down, and he ties me up.

Morrison: And then where did he go?

Francis: It was for a while.  Then he pulled me upstairs.  And downstairs again.  And then to my office.  And pulled me throughout the night.

The ordeal would go on for some four hours. He stripped off Joe’s Rolex watch. He emptied the contents of Joe’s wallet of $1,100 dollars.  He pulled a Picasso off the wall, stuffed it into Joe’s Louis Vuitton luggage. It was valuable stuff but not enough. The intruder wanted money—lots of money.

Francis: He pulled me around to the safe.

Open it, he ordered.

Francis: ... he put me on my knees right here.  And held a gun to my head.  And that’s what threw me to tears.

But Francis told him he’d never used the safe and didn’t know how to open it.

Joe is a good talker, so that night as he lay helpless. Bound and crying, he decided to start talking.

Francis:  ...I told him I’d pay him money.

Morrison: How much money did he want?

Francis: Well, he wanted different amounts. When I was down on the ground here, it was $100,000. And then it became $300,000.

Joe says that’s when he knew he wouldn’t die.

Francis: ...when I convinced him that that I was gonna give him the money. And I wouldn’t go to the police—that there was a new direction.

Morrison: You sold him.

Francis: I did.

But the masked man wanted to make sure Joe wouldn’t back down on his promise—he wanted an insurance policy.

Morrison: He took you to your bedroom?

Francis: Yes.

The producer of those naughty videos was about to become a star of his own, only this one would be made at gun point…

The intruder ordered Joe to lie face down on the bed. He pulled down his pants. Then he revealed he’d brought with him to Joe’s house — a video camera and a sex toy, which he posed suggestively on Joe’s posterior.

Francis: He’s holding a gun and a camera and making me say things, and telling me what to say.

“My name is Joe Francis from Boys Gone Wild....”

The intruder wanted Joe to imply he was gay.

Francis: That just is ridiculous to me. That somebody’s gonna think the owner of “Girls Gone Wild” is gay?

Morrison: So when you were in that moment—

Francis: I would have said anything with a gun to my head. I mean Keith, you would have too.

The camera panned over to Joe’s driver’s license and a few personal photos—extortionist proof that it’s really Joe Francis...

But here, says Joe, was the weirdest thing.  All the while, he was clearly aware  that the whole scene was orchestrated—a real-life horror film whose director was at the other end of a walkie-talkie.

Francis: He was always on a walkie-talkie with another guy.

Morrison: Not a cell phone?

Francis: No, a walkie-talkie. Where I could hear the person speak.

High up in the pampered green of the Bel Air-hills, among the mansions of the very rich, behind the high gates where the likes of Nancy Reagan and Quincy Jones and Joe Francis live their relatively private lives, cell phones don’t work very well.

Morrison: Did they communicate constantly? Or did he call once? 

Francis: Constant communication. And I felt like that other person followed me from wherever I was. Or had been following me all night.

Morrison: Were instructions given over this walkie-talkie?

Francis: Yeah, instructions were given constantly.

Then abruptly, the intruder dragged a trussed up Francis to the garage, packed up his loot, threw Francis into the back of Joe’s own Bentley, and drove off down the hill.

Francis: My hands were wire tied and duct taped behind my back. My mouth was duct taped. I was put face down in the back of the Bentley.

Morrison: Did you know where you were gonna be taken? Or what would happen to you?

Francis: I had no idea what was happening,

But Francis had seen enough movies, worked in television long enough to know how these things can go down.

Francis: I had seen these happen before. The guys who came in your house. And telling these victims that they weren’t gonna do anything if they cooperated, you know, threatening them. But then at the end, they always killed them. So all these things were playing out in my mind. That, "Oh my God, this is how it all ends."

Joe was terrified; he felt the car slow down then the hold up man gave him a warning.

Francis: He was gonna park the car. He was going to leave the keys 100 feet in front of the car. And he was going to get in another car. And there, he said, was a man waiting. And if I moved for at least five minutes that the guy was gonna shoot me. So I’d be dead.  And then if I went to the police I would be killed.

It sounded like a movie, a bad movie full of cliches.  Could there really have been a man hiding in the bushes, waiting to kill Joe, seemed doubtful.  Still, he waited a couple of minutes, just to be sure. And managed to free his hands and get himself out of the car. He ran over, across the street to the Bel Air gate, crying,  frightened and so messed up that at first the guard wouldn’t let him in. Then, Bel Air security called the cops.  The night of terror was over, but not the crime. In fact, a whole new scene was about to begin.

The extortion

Morrison:  You got phone calls after the event?

Francis: Yeah.  I got phone calls—

Francis: Immediately, the day after the event.

Francis (tapes): I’ll meet you. Where do you want to meet.

Caller: you’re not going to meet with me directly

Francis: I’m not going to meet you directly. Well, you have my -----ing tape.

The calls continue, but the trail gets cold until Joe Francis gets a tip from none other than Paris Hilton.