Law enforcement officials arrested a former Cox Communications employee in Arizona for allegedly inserting a brief hard-core porn clip into the 2009 Super Bowl broadcast carried on Comcast's Tucson system.
The FBI and police in Marana, Ariz., on Friday arrested 38-year-old Frank Tanori Gonzalez on suspicion of fraud and computer tampering in connection with the sex video that interrupted the feed of KVOA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Tucson, delivered to Comcast subs, according to the Arizona Attorney General's Office.
"These charges related to the 37-second X-rated pornography interruption of Comcast's Tucson 2009 Super Bowl broadcast, and as a result of the alleged tampering to its servers Comcast suffered significant economic losses," Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said in a statement.
Comcast Tucson receives the KVOA feed through an arrangement with Cox. Cox's Arizona subscribers were not exposed to the porn. On the Comcast system, only the standard-definition version of the KVOA feed was interrupted during the Feb. 1, 2009, broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII.
Gonzalez, formerly a supervisor with Cox Arizona, left the operator shortly after the Super Bowl incident.
"As we suspected, the interruption of the 2009 Super Bowl in Tucson was an intentional, malicious act," Comcast Tucson corporate affairs manager Kelle Maslyn said in a statement to ABC affiliate KGUN. "After our internal investigation proved our technical and security systems were working properly, we turned our investigation over to the FBI. We appreciate the FBI's diligence in thoroughly investigating the programming interruption and determining what happened."
In the wake of the porn broadcast, Comcast offered a $10 credit to its 80,000 subscribers in the market whether or not they saw the porn.
The clip was reportedly from Wild Cherries 5, a movie on the Shorteez hard-core pay-per-view adult channel owned by Playboy Enterprises. The video showed a woman unzipping a man's pants to expose his penis, followed by a graphic sex act between the two.
The porn popped up on the Comcast system immediately after Arizona wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald scored a touchdown on a 64-yard pass, giving his team to a 23-20 lead over the Steelers with less than three minutes left in the game. The Cardinals ultimately lost, 27-23, after Pittsburgh drove 78 yards in the waning seconds and QB Ben Roethlisberger connected with Santonio Holmes for the winning TD.
