D.C.'s Oldest Living Smut Kingpin Tells All Meet Dennis Sobin: Mayoral Candidate, Phone-Sex Innovator, Kennedy Center Playwright, Child-Porn Convict and Wannabe Family Man

While his father was imprisoned, first in Florida and then in federal prison in Virginia, Darrin Sobin attempted what amounted to a homemade Dale Carnegie correspondence course to make his father more bearable. In one letter, he proposed 11 things Sobin could start doing so he could have a relationship with Darrin after his release, like No. 4, “Stop trying to shock people (this includes not cursing)” and No. 9, “Try never to use the word ‘hypocrisy’ again.”

Judging by Darrin’s later letters, Dennis Sobin refused. Instead, he sent his son a short story titled “A Son’s Commitment.” In the story, a father released from prison plots to plant drugs at his son Aaron’s apartment and, by getting him incarcerated, saves his son’s marriage to a woman whose name rhymes with the real name of Darrin’s wife.

Before Sobin came out of federal prison in January 2003, Darrin already had a restraining order against him. Sobin went on to violate it by attempting to attend hearings on crime issues at the Wilson Building—the site of Darrin’s office. On his way to the hearing, Sobin was arrested for violating the restraining order.

The mystery behind Sobin’s continued harassment of his son is why he even cares. Sobin has always presented himself as a man more interested in his hedonism than raising a family—Pohorylo estimated that when she was living with him, Sobin lived with other women a third of the time.

But there’s something that draws Sobin to his son, no matter how many lawyers and judges tell him to stay away. In a letter he sent to Darrin during one of their many court battles, Sobin wrote about seeing his son at trial, “Forgive me for saying it but this is a hell of a way for us to be communicating. But it’s better than nothing! Definitely better!” It’s a pretty good bet the chance for proximity to his son—or at least the chance to do legal battle over said proximity, or at least the chance to hear people talk about the unlikely prospect of said legal battle over said proximity—motivated his latest mayoral run.

In 2010, the restraining order came before Judge José M. López for renewal. Dennis Sobin’s lawyer submitted a sheaf of documents arguing, essentially, that Sobin is just too nice to be a stalker. They included a grant from George Soros’s Open Society Institute for Sobin’s Prisons Foundation. “If the below email and attachments don’t impress Judge López, nothing will,” Sobin wrote to his lawyer.

López, in fact, wasn’t impressed. Last month, he extended the restraining order for another year. “The Dennis Sobin that gives free guitar lessons to the elderly, is not the same person when it comes to Darren Sobin,” he wrote in the order.

The crowd seated inside the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater is waiting to see the musical Sobin wrote about his arrest, Busted at City Hall. Or, as it could be called, The Dennis Sobin Story, If Dennis Sobin Won.

The musical is part of Sobin’s foundation’s contribution to the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage festival. Sobin’s foundation has produced prisoners’ plays at the Kennedy Center in the past, and now it’s Sobin’s turn. The Kennedy Center holds a special power over Sobin. He mentioned his guitar performances there repeatedly during campaign appearances. His memoir is called From Prison to Kennedy Center Stage.

After a performance by a police band, three young women take the stage. Sobin sits behind a piano player. For once in his life, he’s mostly out of view.

The invisible man is a guy who got rich off of Washington’s appetite for sex. He made, concealed, and lost a fortune along the way. He racked up convictions and sexual partners. He did terrible things. He never apologized. And he made life hell for members of the family he dragged along with him. And he also built himself up again after his conviction, after a fashion. Should that recovery, the transformation into a nice old man who teaches guitar and champions jailhouse artists and only really acts like a menace to one person, outweigh everything else? The musical is Sobin’s argument for yes.

Onstage, with a woman playing the hero’s role, the drama traipses through Sobin’s old prison term and his new run for mayor. But there’s a twist: Sobin actually gets elected. At the end, Mayor Sobin has a friendly chat in city hall with a senator and the guard who arrested him.

But the musical’s true climax comes while the Sobin character is arrested at city hall—by authorities who’ve been alerted by his own son. As the guard sing-drones about his Miranda rights, Sobin asks the eternal porn king questions: “How can this happen to someone so kind? Someone who only has love on his mind?”