A victim of so-called “revenge porn” in Texas was awarded $1.2 billion after her ex-boyfriend allegedly shared what court documents call “visually intimate material” of her online and in emails to family, friends and colleagues afterward. that they separated
The woman’s ex, Marques Jamal Jackson, allegedly posted the images on various social networking sites, in a publicly accessible Dropbox folder, and on a phishing page of a pornographic website. He also told her that he would “spend the rest of his life trying unsuccessfully to remove himself from the Internet,” the woman’s lawyers alleged.
After 30 minutes of deliberation on Aug. 9, a jury in Harris County District Court voted unanimously to award the woman the money. A judge will issue the final ruling, which the woman’s lawyers say will arrive at any moment and confirm the jury’s recommendation.
Jackson will have to pay the woman $1 billion in punitive damages and $200 million in actual damages, referring to the mental anguish she suffered in the past and will suffer in the future, according to court documents.
Jacob Schiffer, one of the woman’s lawyers, said the case “was about deterrence, not money,” adding that the lawyers knew from the start that the defendant had no assets.
Using the woman’s initials, the victim’s lead attorney, Bradford J. Gilde, said in a statement. “While it is unlikely that a judgment will be recovered in this case, the compensatory verdict gives DL a chance to reclaim her good name.
Jackson could not immediately be reached by phone or email Wednesday afternoon. He had no representation in court, one of the woman’s attorneys said.
Jackson and the woman began a relationship around 2016 and spent a few years living in Chicago before having “a long, drawn-out breakup” in early 2020, according to the original complaint, filed in April 2022. The couple officially ended their relationship in October 2021.
At that point, the woman’s attorneys allege, Jackson became “delusional and paranoid” and believed the woman had begun a relationship with a mutual friend. That’s when, they allege, he began mistakenly sharing intimate images that she had given him.
The complaint alleges that Jackson shared the images after the woman told him that he should keep them for himself and, after they separated, that he should destroy them.
Schiffer and Brad Ertl, another attorney representing the woman, said the consensual images she shared with Jackson were not the majority of the images involved in the case and that she also allegedly shared recordings of them during sexual intercourse that she did not I knew he had recorded.
Jackson also allegedly hacked into the woman’s work Zoom account, told a loan officer that she submitted a fraudulent application, stole money from her bank account to pay rent, harassed her with fake phone numbers, and spied on her at home. of his mother using his security system, according to the complaint.
The irony now, Schiffer said, is that when “you Google that man’s name, what comes up is a $1.2 billion judgment.”
Ertl added that despite Jackson’s lack of assets, the judgment may remain tied to his future assets. “Until he pays this off in full, he will always have this on him,” she said.
Texas is one of 48 states, along with Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and Guam, where non-consensual pornography is illegal, according to the advocacy organization Cyber Civil Rights Initiative.
The Texas law, known as the Relationship Privacy Act, which went into effect in 2015, prohibits the “unlawful disclosure or promotion of intimate visual material” and imposes civil and criminal penalties.
One in 8 Americans who use social media have been the subject of non-consensual pornography, and women were 1.7 times more likely to be targeted than men, according to research by the organization.
Proponents prefer the term “non-consensual pornography” or “image-based sexual pornography” over the more commonly used “revenge pornography”, arguing that the latter term implicitly blames the victim and can mask a variety of motives.
