Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Thu, 10 Apr 2025
Joe Francis says his Girls Gone Wild videos are documentaries and therefore protected by the First Amendment. Panama City Beach Mayor Lee Sullivan says otherwise. A battle commences between two big personalities, and neither is backing down. Click ‘Subscribe’ at the top of the Infamous show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices A Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment production. To connect with Infamous's creative team and gain access to behind the scenes content, join our community at Campsidemedia.com/join Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Mayor Lee Sullivan and what was his background?
I was the mayor of Whoville from 2000, protecting, if I may say, all the little Whos.
Mayor Lee Sullivan wasn't just a politician. He'd had a long career in law enforcement,
My last tour of duty was as chief of police, Panama City Beach. They had encouraged me to retire so they could get a kinder, gentler police chief. I took my retirement in 1997, and then I ran against the mayor that encouraged me to leave, so I replaced the asshole who replaced me.
Fair enough. That seems fair enough. Mayor Lee is the kind of guy who's always sure he's right. And he really liked getting rid of things. He's very well known for his campaign against crawfish.
The state of Florida decided that this specific crawfish was an endangered species crawfish. If this crawdad was on your property, basically you just needed to kill yourself because you couldn't do anything with your property anymore.
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Chapter 2: What was Mayor Lee's campaign against the endangered crawfish?
Here he is on a local TV program during his election campaign.
We're going to spend a lot of money and people will have jobs, government jobs, to save this thing. Lord knows I'd have been in prison when I was a young'un. There's no telling what we did to them.
Mayor Lee wanted to blast those crawdads off the face of the earth.
I was encouraging him to fill it up. Okay, put dirt in it. Kill the crawdad.
And now he was planning to do the same to Joe Francis. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis, and this is Infamous. You're listening to episode two of our five part series, Boy Gone Wild.
Join us as we make the rounds with sorority girls, college cuties and the girl next door. Beautiful, real college girls, unbuttoned and out of control.
So when we left off last time, 2002, I'd just seen Joe Francis get arrested. We were at the Holiday Inn in Panama City Beach. Reminder, you're sometimes hearing an actor play Joe Francis.
Next time I come to town, I want this hotel renamed the Joe Francis Holiday Inn.
I met up with Joe again the next morning. He looked tired, but he was otherwise his usual arrogant self.
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Chapter 3: How did Joe Francis defend his Girls Gone Wild filming legally?
I mean, the more people know Panama City Beach is the spot for Girls Gone Wild, the more they want to come there, the more they want to spend their money in town.
Nobody wants that. Maybe the Holiday Inn, maybe some, you know, I mean, the people that peddle the offside of that, they might have got upset.
So, but he says you guys targeted him, right? He says, well, they were running after us. They were surveilling us. They were, you know.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Oh, he's got it.
He's got it right.
He wanted attention. We gave him attention.
Okay, here's what happened. Panama City Beach began to zero in on Joe Francis. They did it publicly. I mean, Mayor Lee is not exactly a shrinking violet. In fact, Joe Francis and Mayor Lee even went on Greta Van Susteren to debate each other.
Mr. Mayor, we are not doing anything illegal. My cameraman and myself will not be pushed around by a local tyrant or a city police who barely won an election by 90 votes.
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Chapter 4: What was the public confrontation between Joe Francis and Mayor Lee Sullivan?
So who is going to be victorious in this battle of wills? Joe Francis or Mayor Lee? More after the break.
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You're listening to Infamous from Campside Media.
So when we left off, we were in Panama City Beach and tensions were ramping between Mayor Lee and Joe Francis, founder of Girls Gone Wild.
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Chapter 5: How did law enforcement respond to Girls Gone Wild's activities in Panama City Beach?
Yeah, well, 6'8", but yeah, same thing. If they use that terminology, just, I guess, because maybe I make them uncomfortable because I'm a big guy. But that's why I take it as a grain of salt. I don't ever think of it as derogatory. It's just terms of endearment.
Adam Buff, a.k.a. Buffy, was one of the guys on Joe Francis's case.
I mean, what was the sort of word that went out? Like 2003, he's been arrested the year before.
Right. Right. And now he's back. And he's printed up shirts like, I'm the mayor of Panama City. And he's ready to do whatever he wants.
They had a beach house, but it was on the water. They had a lot of open house parties there. We did a lot of... surveillance work on it and, you know, trying to get a handle on what exactly was going on there. Because we just, you know, again, like kind of like everybody else had heard rumors and we're trying to substantiate stuff to see if there was a reason to move forward or not.
There was. This was the beginning of Mayor Lee's moment. And it all started with a group of teenage girls. They were probably doing what teenage girls on spring break do. Blasting music, singing along, maybe some backseat dancing. And then all of a sudden, there's a van in front of them. It's the Girls Gone Wild van.
And then the cars pull into the parking lot of a gas station and everybody's talking.
And these girls here in Panama City Beach are going wilder by the minute. Sweetheart, what's your name, sweetie? I'm Gerilyn. Gerilyn, you know what? We're in Panama City. We're in Florida. This is Girls Gone Wild. Let me see you girls do something wild.
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Chapter 6: What was the significance of the Greta Van Susteren debate between Joe Francis and Mayor Lee?
Okay, that's not the actual audio, but you get the drift. And as usual, the guy from Girls Gone Wild has a suggestion. I want to make clear that the dialogue in this upcoming scene is imagined, even though the action comes from court documents and a book. Maybe he says that they should go over to the Chateau Motel and just film a little something.
So they go over there to a three-story motel, sort of sandy yellow color, and they walk up to room 320, 90 bucks a night. White sheets that you don't want to look at too closely.
Say, why don't you two get in the shower? All right, you two, come over here.
So allegedly, and Joe disputes this, the friends not in the shower sit in the other room. They probably feel sort of awkward listening to softcore porn happening in a bathroom. But something even stranger is about to happen. The founder of Girls Gone Wild has entered the building.
Hey, I'm Joe Francis.
And according to a book by a former Girls Gone Wild employee, she did. So I imagine the two remaining girls looking at each other, just feeling so weird. Maybe they should go into the other room? In fact, allegedly, Joe is leading them into the other room right now. Come on, sit down over here. He gestures to the bed next to him, and once again, he takes their hands.
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Chapter 7: Who is Adam Buff and what role did he play in investigating Joe Francis?
Now, you can probably imagine what happens next. When Joe finishes, one woman stands up and she throws him a towel. They may be feeling weird, and perhaps to make them feel better, I guess Joe then pulls out a wad of money and he throws it.
You want to go for a ride in my Ferrari?
But it doesn't end there. After driving around for a bit, they go back to the motel. One of the girls walks around the back and there's a camera crew waiting. It may have gone something like this.
All right, sweetie, let's have you flash for the cameras. All right, there we go.
He captures her on camera. It's all on tape. And all of these girls are underage. Joe Francis doesn't know it yet, but this day is about to change everything. More after the break.
This is Infamous from Campside Media.
Okay. So it's April 2nd, 2003. Buffy, Adam Buff, he's staked outside of Joe Francis' condo.
I saw his Ferrari pull into the Prince's condo out there.
Buff calls it in and waits for orders from his superior.
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Chapter 8: What event ignited Mayor Lee's crackdown on Girls Gone Wild?
They told me to take him into custody. I pulled up in my vehicle. I was in plain clothes. I had a badge around my neck.
Now, remember, Buffy is a kind of intimidating presence. He's 6'6", 6'8", whatever. And at this point, Joe's just got back from the gym. He's just wearing a T-shirt, baseball cap.
He was standing in the underneath of the building where the elevators were. and as I started getting closer and closer to him, he kind of just started sizing me up, and I guess figured that I was probably a cop. And he turned to take off running, told him to stop. He never stopped, so I had to wrestle him to the ground.
What the fuck is going on? What are you doing? Why are you putting handcuffs on me?
I handcuffed him, stood him up, walked him over to the front of my vehicle, and waited for my supervisor to get here.
Remember how I said that Joe is kind of like a guy who snaps at a waiter? Joe right now is in that headspace, and he's asking questions of everyone who's arriving on the scene.
So he just wanted to know why he was being arrested, right?
Yes, yes, ma'am.
Then, that afternoon, Buff was sent to search Joe's private jet.
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