Far-right North Carolina gubernatorial candidate and current Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson bought “hundreds” of bootleg porn videos and went to a porn shop nearly every day of the week in the ’90s and early 2000s, according to a new report.
Five men who worked at or patronized a pair of 24-hour video-pornography stores in Greensboro—Gents Video & News and and I-40 Video & News—told the North Carolina Assembly that Robinson would frequently drop in after finishing work for the day at a nearby pizza shop.
Louis Money, a former employee, told the outlet that Robinson would often purchase two or more “previews,” which consisted of a viewing in a private booth, over the course of a night.
The future lieutenant governor also bought “hundreds” of bootleg porn videos that Money sold on the side, he said.
He told Raleigh station WRAL that Robinson’s tastes lay in “just straight American porn.”
“And I don’t trust anybody that doesn’t like good old American porn,” he went on. “So, no, he shouldn’t be [judged]. He should be judged on everything else, but he should not be judged for this.”
A Donald Trump acolyte and espoused Evangelical Christian, Robinson has professed hard-line stances on everything from abortion to members of the LGBTQ+ community, whom he once referred to as “filth.”
“I know he might have problems with gay people, but I don’t think he has problems with lesbians,” Money told the Assembly.
Robinson has also railed against the practice of teaching public school students about gender identities and sexual orientations, calling books that discuss the subject “borderline child pornography.” If elected, he would be the state’s first Black governor.
In a 2022 memoir, Robinson explained he became a devout Christian in the 1980s, but that locking into his faith took longer than most. A young married father of two when he was saved, he told an audience at a Baptist church in 2021 that “the devil doubled down in my life” soon after.
“[God] told me what I was supposed to do,” he continued, according to the Assembly. “As I was doing wrong, that voice was in the back of my head, saying, ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’ And I still continued in disobedience after being saved. And I’m not ashamed to say it.”
Both stores he allegedly frequently have since closed, having gone the way of most video-porn shops in the internet era. “I don’t know if he still watches porn,” Money said. “You know, people change in 20 years.”
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, far right, appears on stage as former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the North Carolina Aviation Museum & Hall of Fame in Asheboro last month.
Jonathan Drake/Reuters
Money has since become the frontman of a Greensboro band called Trailer Park Orchestra, which earlier this year released a song called “The Lt. Governor Owes Me Money.”
He insisted to both the Assembly and WRAL that the song was based on a true story about $25 Robinson never paid him for the final bootleg tape he bought from him in 2004. He admitted to WRAL, however, that he was “promoting his band” and trying to make money from the song by taking his story to the press.
On election day in November 2022, Robinson stopped into a Planet Fitness in High Point, where Money happened to be working at the time, he said.
Robinson, who had been lieutenant governor for more than a year at that point, recognized Money and called out his name. The men, who hadn’t seen each other in about a decade, spoke for about 20 minutes, Money recalled.
“I was like, ‘Dude, I’m so proud of you, man,’” he said, adding that he jokingly scolded Robinson for $25 he still owed him for a bootleg porn tape he’d fronted him years ago. The lieutenant governor laughed, he said.
Later that day, Money posted a photo to social media of the two of them posing together at the Planet Fitness. “I disagree politically with this guy. However we have always been cool,” he captioned it. “That’s our Lt. Governor who still owes me money LOL.”
Robinson’s spokesperson Mike Longeran told the Assembly in an email that Money’s story was a “false and personal attack” and “complete fiction.” He characterized Money as a “freak show grifter” with a “long history of criminal charges” who used to hang around the Papa John’s where Robinson worked and “ask for free pizza.”
Court records obtained by the Assembly show that Money has faced nine criminal charges over the last 13 years. He has two drug-related misdemeanor convictions on his record; the other cases were dismissed.
Money said he sold marijuana for two decades, but never to Robinson. He admitted he may have also asked “for a free pizza here and there.”
But he disputed the rest of the spokesperson’s characterization. “I think I’m going to write a song called ‘Freak Show Grifter,’” he added.
The Daily Beast also reached out to Robinson’s campaign for comment.
Pornography was not illegal in North Carolina at the time Robinson is alleged to have indulged in it, nor is it banned today. But state legislators last year passed a law requiring would-be porn viewers to first submit photo identification to an explicit website to verify their age.
The current governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, signed the bill into law in June.
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