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January 30, 2008

Reports: CleanFlicks Founder Arrested

Charged with forcible sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl, Daniel Thompson was known for editing videos to make them more family friendly.

Mark Moring

Note: CleanFlicks has disputed much of the initial media reports cited here. See our update.

The co-founder of CleanFlicks, a video editing service once used by many Christians, has been arrested in Utah for allegedly paying a 14-year-old girl for sex.

Daniel Thompson, who ran CleanFlicks till the courts shut it down in 2006, had more recently operated Flix Club, a family-friendly edited-movie video business in Orem, Utah. He was arrested last Thursday on two charges of forcible sexual abuse and two charges of forcible sexual activity with a 14-year-old. Thompson is out on bail.

Thompson's business partner at Flix Club, Isaac Lifferth, was also arrested on similar charges.

Thompson reportedly told police that Flix Club, which carried videos in which objectionable content had been edited out, was only a front, and that he and Lifferth were also involved in making and distributing porn movies.

Flix Club was forced to close last year after a federal court ruled that movie-editing businesses violated U.S. copyright law when they "sanitized" films by removing nudity, sex, profanity, and other objectionable content.

According to police reports, Thompson and Lifferth allegedly paid two 14-year-old girls $20 each to perform oral sex, and Lifferth allegedly had intercourse with a 16-year-old girl multiple times, including in the offices at Flix Club.

"I would have never suspected there was other stuff going on," the father of the 16-year-old told the Daily Herald in Provo. "I guess I didn't know Daniel. He always seemed like a real decent guy."

Obviously not. USA Today blogged several news items about the story under the title, "Clean Flicks, dirty man?"

Ironically, and perhaps prophetically, Thompson's MySpace page includes the tagline, "Somewhere in the valley between Good and Evil." On that same page, for his "status" - where most people write something like "single" or "married" - Thompson wrote "Swinger."

posted by Mark Moring | Comments (5)

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I think it is horrible what Daniel Thompson has allegedly done. And I think that other than the 14 and 16 year old girls, the biggest victims is the true Cleanflicks founder--Ray Lines. I knew this would happen that he would be erroneously and mistakenly associated with this scandal.

-Pete Maughan

Posted By: Pete Maughan | January 31, 2008 1:16 AM

It is sad that Ray Lines who is the Only founder of Cleanflicks has been wrongly put in the same category as these two obviously disgusting men. How sad when grown men have to prey on young unhappy girls. I hope that justice will be served.

Posted By: Mable Table | January 31, 2008 1:25 PM

For the record, Daniel Thompson, nor the other gentleman charged had any direct affiliation with CleanFlicks. A press release with more information should be up on CleanFlicks Web site later today.

Posted By: JB | February 1, 2008 5:47 PM

Here's the truth, Part 1. (This is straight from CleanFlicks itself the short version at least.)

Daniel Thompson's DAD purchased three CleanFlicks retail outlets from CleanFlicks as it was leaving the brick & mortar business. After Daniel Thompson got out of jail for securities fraud, his father gave him a job running one of the retail stores. Shortly thereafter, CleanFlicks told the DAD it wanted nothing to do with Daniel Thompson. The company then told the DAD and all other retail outlets to stop using the CleanFlicks name as it moved our of brick & mortar retailing and purely into editing movies and renting/selling such movies.

Here's the link to the CleanFlicks news release: http://www.cleanflicks.com/CleanFlicksDenial-FinalFinal.doc.

More to come. [DISCLOSURE: Our PR agency was retained by CleanFlicks to clear-up misperceptions about it on the Web and in the press.]

Posted By: David Politis | February 1, 2008 11:53 PM

This is truly terrible. But if it had happened anywhere other than Utah (say California, New York, or any other major metro/media hotspot, where these things are much more common and much more twisted), would you be associating it with the LDS Church? Do not blame the entire Church for the disgusting actions of a vast minority of its members. That's like blaming the entire United States and all of its people for the war in the Middle East.

Posted By: Gee | August 9, 2010 8:47 PM