Parents Must Pay Son $45,000 for Trashing His Eclectic VHS Porn Collection

A man whose parents trashed his massive porn stash will get $30,000 from them to recoup the loss of his collection, as ordered by a judge last week.  

U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney in Kalamazoo, Michigan ordered David Werking's parents, Beth and Paul Werking to pay $30,441.54 to their son and more than $14,500 to his attorney in legal fees, according to court records pulled by Motherboard. MLive.com reported on the case last week. 

Werking, a 43 year old living in Indiana, won a lawsuit against his Michigan parents in December 2020, but the judge delayed making a ruling on the damages until last week. 

According to a series of excruciating emails and the lawsuit, Werking’s parents threw away multiple boxes of pornography and sex toys left behind in their home after they kicked him out. He'd moved back in with them after a divorce and lived there for 10 months, but they'd called the police on him after he allegedly caused a disturbance in their home in August 2017. Two days later, according to emails from his father, they found him on the streets and took him to LOVE Inc, a Christian ministry center. That same day, they found his porn collection and started throwing it out. Werking repeatedly asked his parents for his porn collection back, the emails show.

In December, according to a police investigator's report, Werking’s parents brought him some of his stuff, and he noticed items missing, and they said they destroyed them. Werking claimed that the items totaled $10,000 and the emotional attachment to them would be worth around $30,000. Investigators called his mother, and she said they had asked him not to bring porn into the house.

Emails between Werking and his parents outline years of back-and-forth about Werking's divorce, his inability to find work or an apartment, and their disapproval of his vast porn collection. In one email, his father Paul Werking lists some of the genres he claims to have found in his son's stash, including incest, beastiality, slavery, torture, and rape. "Any civilization that tolerates or promotes these acts will not survive. Any individual that puts this garbage into his mind (whether or not he commits these acts) will also suffer," he wrote in an email to his son in March 2018.

Werking outlined his inventory of thousands of DVDs and VHS tapes in incredible detail in court documents, including titles like Piss N'Fist, Debbie Does Dallas 3, and Big Bad Grannys. 

“It is very difficult to find a price for many of these items. Many titles are unavailable, and when I say unavailable, I mean unavailable ANYWHERE,” Werking wrote on his inventory. “I have had these titles on my wishlist/wantlist for a year with no postings. Think: ‘Not just out of print, but the entire studio making it dissolved, and that was twenty years ago.’ I bought all of these items either in New/Mint or VG+ condition. I played them maybe once or twice because I didn't want them to get scratched or messed up.” The list details thousands of DVDs, VHS tapes, and sex toys. 

Particularly valuable pieces, Werking said, were Max Hardcore Extreme School Girls 16 ($100), Older Women Eat Pussy ($100), Muff Divers Delight ($100), Fuck My Ass Please 8 ($100), and the Elegant Angel 1992 classic Snatched to the Future ($100). 

His father wrote in an email to Werking in January 2018 that they found 12 moving boxes full of pornography, plus two boxes of sex toys, and threw them all out. The amount was awarded after a Victoria Hartmann, director of the Erotic Heritage Museum near Las Vegas, appraised Werking's inventory.

"Theres plenty of porn on the internet if you want to watch that Dad. Try youporn or xhamster," Werking wrote in a December 2017 email. "Believe me, I know you need it with mom around. I needed it with Mary around. Meanwhile for me there are college girls out there waiting to be made into women." He went on to list everything he left at their house that he wanted back, including "the sex toys, my music cd's, my tambourine, my black comforter, my record player, my wedding rings, 8 8x10 gesso'ed canvases, my art bag, a 'Owner get's Clipped' poster, 1 long container of smutty magazines," and a bunch of PS Vita games, including Rayman Origins and Little Big Planet.  

"One other thing was just stupid. Why did you keep so many VHS tapes? Did you just want to get arrested? I mean, who buys VHS tapes now-a-days?" Paul Werking wrote. "Do you even have a tape player? Frankly, David, I did you a big favor by getting rid of all this stuff for you. If you are smart, you will get counselling and give up your porn addiction. However, if you really want to totally ruin what is left of your life, by all means go ahead and sue me."