CALIFORNIA
Chico News & Review
By Meredith J. Graham
meredithg@newsreview.com
This article was published on 03.12.15.
Donny Pauling made a name for himself in Chico more than a decade ago by producing pornography. Then he abruptly left the industry, claiming he’d found God. In the past three months, however, he’s been charged with 13 felonies and one misdemeanor of sexual abuse involving underage girls in Shasta and Sutter counties. And the investigation isn’t even close to being over.
Pauling’s story is nothing if not unique. The son of a pastor, he rebelled against his father and the church at a young age. In his mid-20s, he bought a video camera and set up a porn studio in downtown Chico (above where Beach Hut Deli now sits). He made a lot of money, and it was relatively easy. In an interview with the CN&R in 2007, he said, “The society we live in glamorizes porn. A lot of kids grow up thinking it’s cool to be in porn. So it wasn’t tough for me [to find models].”
After about seven years of running his own website, as well as supplying content for others under the pseudonym Donovan Philips, Pauling had an epiphany. To be fair, a few events led up to it. First, his fiancée left him. Then he started taking to heart phone calls and emails from women he’d photographed, pleading for him to take their photos off the Internet. One threatened suicide if he didn’t; several told him of ruined relationships with their families because of him.
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