"This guy runs a legal business, he employs a lot of people, he pays his taxes," Fishbein said. "He does everything you're supposed to."
He said Cohen puts up "every wall he can" to prevent children from viewing his sites, while smaller operations offer free and easily accessible porn to anyone with an Internet connection.
"Those guys run scot-free," Fishbein said. "The government chooses to go after high-profile guys."
Andrew Miller, an attorney for Cohen, said Thursday that he could not discuss the raid and that neither Cohen nor "anyone associated with this matter" would comment.
FBI agents, state troopers, and the Philadelphia Police Vice Unit spent most of Wednesday raiding Cohen's companies, National A-1 Advertising and National A-1 Internet, at Seventh and Chestnut Streets.
The companies provide Internet sex videos and telephone sex chat, and own domain names such as hotmovies.com and escorts.com.
A man who called himself James Cybert and who described himself as director of business development for National A-1 Internet commented about the raid via his Twitter account, @HotMovies.
"Nothing like having 100+ federal agents in your office. :(," he wrote.
Some of the boxes the agents removed were labeled "operator/chat logs." Others were labeled to indicate they contained evidence from hotmovies.com, which provides videos on demand.
Federal authorities have declined to discuss the investigation.
Fishbein, a Philadelphia native, said Cohen had been in business for at least 20 years, starting with phone sex in the days before the Internet.
"If you walk into that building, it's like a Silicon Valley company," he said. "It's like a normal company."
Fishbein said he had not had a substantive conversation with Cohen since the raid and did not know what authorities were seeking. He said Cohen was not connected to prostitution, as some media outlets have reported.
"He's not running girls, I can tell you that," he said.
Contact staff writer Troy Graham at 215-854-2730 or tgraham@phillynews.com.
