Free Republic

The company that owns Penthouse magazine and a host of online dating and adult websites filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday. FriendFinder Networks Inc.'s move comes as many in the adult entertainment industry struggle because of an increase in free online options. The Boca Raton, Fla., company said bankruptcy was "the most efficient and cost effective way for the company … to continue to operate our business."

PLANO, Texas (AP) ― Penthouse magazine founder Bob Guccione has died in a suburban Dallas hospital at age 79. A statement issued by the Guccione family says he died Wednesday at Plano Specialty Hospital in Plano after a long battle with cancer. The Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Guccione introduced Penthouse to the American public in 1969, at the height of the feminist movement and the sexual revolution.

GUCCIONE Dodges a bullet. Photo: AP Bob Guccione, Sr., on the eve of final eviction from his East Side townhouse.......filed a new $250 million lawsuit against the current owners of Penthouse Media Group and his one-time financial adviser, claiming conspiracy and fraud. Penthouse, founded by Guccione in 1965, once sold millions of copies a month and was seen as a wilder and less censored version of Playboy. But a variety of factors crimped its newsstand sales and there were widespread allegations of financial chicanery. The suit comes just as a New York state bankruptcy judge dismissed another suit by...

The one-time owners of Penthouse magazine cooked the books and defrauded investors by falsely booking up to $1 million in phantom revenue in 2003, according to charges leveled yesterday by federal regulators. The Securities and Exchange Commission also charged that executives at the company illegally used an electronic signature of Bob Guccione Sr., the magazine's legendary founder, on government filings that he never saw. "The inclusion of the $1 million payment under the agreement increased Penthouse's reported revenue by approximately 9 percent from $11,072,000 to $12,072,000 and changed a quarterly net loss of $167,000 to a purported net profit of...