Just days after one operator of a revenge porn site agreed to settle a federal complaint against him, a man who ran a similar site in California was found guilty of identity theft and extortion.
The AP reports that the 28-year-old San Diego man operated the now-defunct site, yougotposted.com, which included thousands of revealing images — mostly of women — that were published by anonymous users without the subjects’ knowledge or approval.
And while the posters of the images were anonymous, the people in those pictures often had personal info — full names, locations, links to social media pages — included alongside the photos.
The defendant also ran another site, changemyreputation.com, where people could pay up to $350 to have their photos removed from his other site.
In all, he was found guilty on 21 identity theft and 6 extortion counts. The jury could not reach a consensus on one conspiracy count and one identity theft count so a mistrial was declared on those charges.
NBC San Diego says that it took the court clerk 20 minutes to read off the full list of convictions against the defendant, who now faces up to 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors argued that he should be placed in custody pending sentencing because he could pose a risk to his victims.
“He is a vindictive individual who takes pleasure out of harming people,” Deputy Attorney General Tawnya Austin told the court. “That’s what the evidence has sussed out. And his tool of destruction happens to be the one thing that we cannot easily monitor. That is his area of expertise.”
The judge ordered the defendant held on $450,000 bail.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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