‘Girls Gone Wild’ founder Joe Francis is sorry for calling the jurors who convicted him “mentally f-ing retarded” in a press interview — well, sort of.
Francis issued a statement apologizing to the jurors on his recent trial, where he was convicted on charges of assault and false imprisonment, for the extremely offensive remarks he made to the The Hollywood Reporter while still maintaining that he is “completely innocent of the charges” and intends to appeal them.
“I deeply regret the remarks attributed to me in the interview with the Hollywood Reporter,” Francis wrote in a statement published by the website Thursday. “They were hurtful and do not reflect my true feelings.”
While the ‘Girls Gone Wild’ creator’s apology statement was mostly a plea of innocence, he did admit that his remarks were “appalling,” adding that “anyone who has ever been wrongfully convicted of a crime that they did NOT commit would be as frustrated as I am.”
Francis also places a great deal of the blame on The Hollywood Reporter for failing “to include one shred of evidence from the trial that proved beyond a reasonable doubt my innocence.”
According to Francis, he spent six hours talking with a reporter from the website, and yet “all that was publicized were my most intemperate remarks.”
Francis was found guilty earlier this month on three counts of false imprisonment, one assault likely to cause bodily injury and one count of dissuading a witness from reporting. He faces up to five years in prison.
“I’m not, nor have I ever been a violent person,” Francis wrote in the statement.
One of his jurors on his trial, however, was reported as saying the conviction rested on the “emotional testimonies” of the women, adding, “the 911 calls from that night, the several of them, would be harrowing for a lot of people to hear — not necessarily the jurors or people in the courtroom, but people in general.”
Obviously, Francis’ comments about the jury, that they “should be lined up and shot,” definitely did not help his case.
