Sex Toy Story

She knew Moore's reputation as a gentleman, but Sisemore also knew he could exercise discretion in choosing which cases to prosecute. Moore refused to dismiss the charge against Joanne.

On November 11, Joanne had called her director with Passion Parties, who recommended Sisemore. Flabbergasted to hear the charge, Sisemore called the police department and asked, "Can I have the dildo patrol?"

The attorney negotiated to bring Joanne to the station but got tied up in court. On Thursday, Sisemore was told if Joanne didn't appear, officers were coming to get her. After leaving court at 6 p.m., Sisemore obtained a $1,500 bond, piled the Webbs in her Corvette and raced to the county jail in Cleburne. On the way, her coffee spilled and ruined the document. It looked like Joanne would have to spend the night in the pokey.

While the jailers fingerprinted Joanne, Sisemore and Chris dashed around until they found another bondsman. Sisemore says the idea that his wife might end up in jail had Chris acting like "a wooden robot." By 10 p.m., when they got back to the courthouse, Chris was almost in tears.

Inside, Joanne was handing out business cards. Seeing an acquaintance among the inmates, Joanne called out: "What are you in for?"

"Traffic tickets," the man hollered. "What about you?"

"Selling an obscene device to two undercover officers," Joanne yelled.

The policewoman handling her booking looked up. "You're kidding," she said. "I used to sell those. Who the hell did you piss off?"

Though the jail visit seemed surreal, the next week reality hit. Unable to pay their bills, the Webbs closed the office, called creditors and started selling everything they could. Joanne called Passion Parties headquarters and asked for help with Sisemore's fee. No one in the company's history had been arrested for selling vibrators. They recommended Joanne call the ACLU.

Earlier, in a scene out of the movie Norma Rae, Joanne had sat down with Katy, 16, and Matt, 13, and explained that their mother was going to be arrested on an obscenity charge.

"Oh, my gosh," said Katy, a popular teen who sports black and red streaks through her platinum hair. "You're a criminal!" They hugged and cried a bit. Then Katy said, "We'll be there for you, Mom." Everybody high-fived.

But now the teens were fielding embarrassing questions from friends. The family received a hate letter: "I wonder if your children know that you are swingers and whores...You both should be ashamed. You look like a couple that has the potential of being a classy couple. Too bad you are covering it up with your filth. Why, I can smell you through this paper. Gross. Signed, Sad for your children."

Katy was furious. "I love my parents," she says. Then Katy discovered anonymous posts on a blog blasting the Webbs: "[Joanne's] skirts are way too short and she prances around as if it is okay to be flaunting herself in front of our husbands and OUR KIDS!" "These sex toys were not a job for them but a way for them to have sex with others!"

The teen fired back: "Shame on you acting like sixth-grade girls. I can already say I'm more mature than you are. And I'm not even ashamed to sign my name." But the furor bothered Katy; her grades dropped dramatically, and she stopped going to work.

Joanne tried to bolster the family's morale, but Chris sank into depression. He asked his stepfather to take the guns out of the house so he couldn't commit suicide. After Joanne dragged him to the emergency room, he was diagnosed as clinically depressed.

During his usual visit to the Webbs around Thanksgiving, Castro was shocked to see Chris. "He was in pretty bad shape," he says. He made Chris get out of bed and walk around the block. Over the next few weeks, Chris, now taking Zoloft, began to pull out of his despair.

The Webbs and Sisemore decided it was time to fight back. They had to focus public attention on the unfairness of the law. A few stories about Joanne's arrest had appeared in local newspapers and on TV. By the end of January, reports about the arrest had appeared in media outlets around the world, including The New York Times, CNN, NPR and the BBC. The tenor was always the same: What are those morons in Burleson thinking?

Gag Me

If the story of Joanne's arrest was a joke in the media, it wasn't to dozens of Passion Party consultants who inundated Sisemore with calls asking if they could be charged with a crime. She had to tell them yes.

When the fax from County Attorney Moore arrived on January 28, Sisemore was first puzzled, then irate. Citing pretrial publicity, Moore had filed a motion for a gag order for the "protection" of Joanne's right to a fair trial.

"Thank you very much," Sisemore told Moore on the phone, "but I don't need you to protect my client." He declined to withdraw the motion.