"Nothing like having 100+ federal agents in your office. :(," read a Twitter post from the National A-1 subsidiary, @HotMovies, posted around noon yesterday.
During the afternoon and into the evening, a steady stream of city police, state troopers, IRS agents and representatives of the U.S. Attorney's Office entered and left the Washington Square building.
Agents drove up a U-Haul truck about 5:40 p.m., but it sat empty in the front of the building until 8 p.m.
Then authorities formed a line from the building, stocking the truck with boxes categorized by item number or by floor.
One young woman was denied entry into the building in the afternoon and began answering reporters' questions.
She said she worked for National A-1 as a phone operator, but while she talked, a woman who claimed not to work for the company whisked her away. The woman then refused to talk about her job.
Besides the porn business, National A-1 also owns and manages National Watch & Diamond, on 8th Street near Chestnut, near Jewelers' Row. A store employee confirmed the establishment was owned by National A-1's chief executive, Richard Cohen, but declined to comment further.
But the bulk of National A-1 business is S-E-X.
The company owns or operates "Talk Line," a phone-sex line; Escorts.com; GayMovies.com, and a host of "video on demand" porn sites. All the porn and sexy talk one could desire, within an earshot of the Liberty Bell and above Stephen Starr's hip eatery Jones.
The sites were inaccessible for most of the day, but for porn aficionados, there was a happy ending - the sites were back up last night.
FBI Special Agent J.J. Klaver declined to comment on the search and would confirm only that agents were at the location.
