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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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052989
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05298900.012
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1990-09-22
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BUSINESS, Page 75Business NotesCRIMEHef's Hutch Much in Dutch
Call it the million-dollar panty raid. An unknown number of
prurient perpetrators broke into the Los Angeles warehouse of
Playboy magazine and swiped some of the Playboy empire's most
valuable assets: namely, 421 hours of unedited videotape footage
displaying Hugh Hefner's Playmates cavorting for the cameras.
Valued at more than $1 million, the tapes constitute the raw
material for such soft-porn piffle as erotic movies on the Playboy
cable-TV channel and videocassette centerfolds. They included
vintage rushes of Sondra Theodore, Miss July 1977 and a former
Hefner girlfriend, interviews with Jessica Hahn, and the 1989
Playboy Video Calendar. Playboy officials fear that the culprits
will edit the stolen material in video chop shops and resell it in
overseas markets at a discount, forcing the company to compete
against its own pirated products.
There seems to have been, as well, an attempt to cover up the
caper. The theft occurred in April, but the bereft Bunny keepers
said nothing publicly until two weeks ago, when Playboy offered a
Hefty $50,000 reward for the wayward videos' safe return.