Code: Select all
Reboot
News regurgitation cycle initiated
Testing plagiarism protocols... SUCCESS!
Posting news with predictable bad joke endingClick to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on X (Opens in new window)
In his 2022 memoir, We Are the Majority, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson wrote that he committed his life to Jesus in the late 1980s.
“I did not, however, experience a drastic conversion like some do,” wrote Robinson, now the Republican nominee for governor. “My behavior did not immediately reform. They say sin is fun for a season, and I was in that season.”
Robinson didn’t specify how long that season lasted or what sins it entailed. But according to Louis Money, who worked in several of Greensboro’s windowless, 24-hour video-pornography stores, Robinson was a frequent customer in the 1990s and early 2000s. Money, 52, told The Assembly that Robinson came in as often as five nights a week to watch porn videos in a private booth.
Five other men who said they were former employees or customers during this period also told The Assembly that Robinson visited two of these stores. In addition, Money said Robinson purchased “hundreds” of bootleg porn videos that Money sold on the side.
“He was good for at least one a week,” Money said. But Money said Robinson didn’t pay for the last one, which he described as a compilation of “super hardcore” films he acquired in New York City that were too risqué to be sold in North Carolina.
He said he doesn’t really care about the $25 Robinson owes him for that tape. Nor is he trying to derail the Republican’s campaign for governor. An unaffiliated voter, he said he likes Robinson as a person, if not necessarily his politics.
But what he described as a “funny story” offered an opportunity for self-promotion. In mid-August, Money’s band, Trailer Park Orchestra, released a YouTube video for their song “The Lt. Governor Owes Me Money.” In the video, an actor in a dark suit and something approximating a Robinson mask walks into an adult video store to buy porn while Money sings, “I made you a bootleg. I did it all the time. Most of the time you paid me. I guess it, uh, slipped your mind.”
Responding to a detailed list of questions, Robinson campaign spokesperson Mike Lonergan told The Assembly in an email that Money’s claims were “bullshit” and a “complete and total fiction.” He called Money and The Assembly’s reporters “degenerates.”
“This false and personal attack on my boss is complete fiction,” Lonergan wrote.
Robinson was elected North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor in 2020, two years after a fiery gun-rights speech to the Greensboro City Council made him a political celebrity. He quickly became the state’s most controversial public official. Robinson’s commentary often targets those who don’t ascribe to his conservative interpretation of Christianity or share his views on sexuality and gender issues.
Screenshots of Money’s music video.
Robinson is said to have frequented Greensboro’s adult video stores during a formative period of his life. He was in his 20s and early 30s, a married father of two bouncing around restaurant and manufacturing jobs, often struggling to pay the bills. He was also, by his own account, not yet fully grounded in the Christian faith that would define his later political career.
Money said he began working at Gents Video & News in 1992, soon after he graduated from high school. He stayed in the video porn business for the next 15 years, working for and managing various Greensboro-area stores, including Gents and I-40 Video & News. (Money is, in fact, his legal name.)
These stores were notorious in Greensboro in the 1990s. Anti-pornography activists protested in parking lots, videotaping customers as they entered and holding picket signs that read, “Do your wife and children know you’re here?” Police, city officials, and conservative Christian groups lobbied to close them as nuisances.
“The government tried for years to shut us down,” Money said. “The only thing that did was the internet.”
Gents didn’t rent porn videos, Money said. Customers could only buy them for about $50 or “preview” them in private booths for $8 a pop. Robinson typically watched two or more previews in a visit, Money said.
“Every night that I worked, which would have been five nights a week, I saw Mark,” Money recalled. “He was spending a good amount of money.”
a Papa John's location where Mark Robinson once workedThe Papa Johns on South Holden Road in Greensboro where Robinson worked in the 1990s. (Photo by Don Carrington)
Lonergan criticized The Assembly for relying on Money’s account. But five other men backed up his story.
They are all Money’s longtime acquaintances, and none is inclined to vote for Robinson. But they don’t appear to have political agendas. A review of state and federal databases didn’t show any significant political contributions in the last decade.
Dan Livingston, who said he was a Gents customer in the mid to late 1990s, told The Assembly that he saw Robinson “from time to time.” Livingston said Robinson usually came in with a pizza, purchased a preview, and went into a private booth to watch it and eat.
I'm excited. I'll wager the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are excited, too. April might be walking a little funny for a few days.