ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Florida officials filed an obscenity charge Monday against the author of a self-published how-to guide for pedophiles that was removed from Amazon.com last month after it generated online outrage.

Colorado authorities arrested Philip Ray Greaves II at his home in Pueblo, Colo., on a Florida warrant that charges him with violating Florida’s obscenity law.

Polk Sheriff Grady Judd said his office was able to have Greaves arrested on Florida charges because Greaves sold and mailed his book, “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-lover’s Code of Conduct,” directly to undercover Polk deputies. Judd says Greaves even signed the book.

“He very proudly sold us his personal copy,” Judd told The Associated Press. “I was outraged by the content. It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children. … You just can’t believe how absolutely disgusting it was.”

A spokeswoman for the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Department said Greaves would be held in the county jail on the Florida charge.

“If he will waive extradition, it’s my goal for him to eat processed turkey on Christmas Day in the Polk County Jail,” Judd said.

Denver attorney David Lane, who has handled several high-profile First Amendment cases, said Florida could have a hard time extraditing Greaves. He is entitled to a hearing where he can argue he should not be sent there to face charges.

“The main question is whether what he’s accused of in Florida would be a crime in Colorado,” Lane said. “Obviously, it’s not a crime in Colorado because he hasn’t been arrested here.”

Greaves has no criminal record, but his self-published book of advice on how to make sexual encounters with children safe caused an uproar when it showed up on Amazon in November. The book was later removed from the site.

Judd said the book contains first-person descriptions of sexual encounters, purportedly written from a child’s point of view.

Greaves argues in the book that pedophiles are misunderstood, as the word literally means to love a child. He adds that it is only a crime to act on sexual impulses toward children, and offers advice that purportedly allows pedophiles to abide by the law.

Judd said he and his detectives got Greaves to sell the book to them for $50; he sent it through the mail and told officers it was his last copy.

Greaves is being charged with distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.

 

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