Woman Is Awarded $1.2 Billion in ‘Revenge Porn’ Lawsuit
Woman Is Awarded $1.2 Billion in ‘Revenge Porn’ Lawsuit
A jury ruled in favor of a Texas woman who said her ex-boyfriend had psychologically and sexually abused her by sharing intimate images of her online without her consent.
A Texas woman was awarded $1.2 billion in damages last week after she sued her former boyfriend and accused him of sending intimate images of her to her family, friends and co-workers from fake online accounts.
The woman, who is identified only by the initials D.L. in court documents, sued her former boyfriend, Marques Jamal Jackson, claiming he had psychologically and sexually abused her by distributing so-called revenge porn, a term for sexually explicit photos or videos of someone that are shared without consent.
The couple started dating in 2016 and were living together in Chicago in early 2020 when they began a “long and drawn-out break up,” according to the lawsuit. D.L. temporarily moved to her mother’s house in Texas and Mr. Jackson began accessing the security system there to spy on her, the lawsuit said.
In October 2021, the couple officially ended their relationship and D.L. told Mr. Jackson that she no longer wanted him to have access to what the lawsuit described as “visual intimate material” of her that she had allowed him to have while they were a couple.
Instead, he posted the images on several social media platforms and websites, including a pornographic website, and in a publicly accessible folder on the online file-sharing service Dropbox, the lawsuit said. He identified her in the material, using her name and address, and images of her face. He created fake social media pages and email accounts to share the material with her family, friends and co-workers, including by sending them a link to the Dropbox folder. On the social media pages where he had posted the images, he tagged accounts for her employer and for her personal gym.
The lawsuit says that this was still happening days before the complaint was filed in April 2022.
Mr. Jackson also used D.L.’s personal bank account to pay his rent, harassed her with calls and text messages from masked numbers, and told her loan officer that she had submitted a fraudulent loan application, the lawsuit said.
In a March 2022 email to D.L. cited in the lawsuit, Mr. Jackson said, “You will spend the rest of your life trying and failing to wipe yourself off the internet.”
Mr. Jackson could not be reached for comment. It was not clear if he had a lawyer.
He also did not appear in court on Wednesday, when a jury in Houston ordered him to pay $200 million for past and future mental anguish and $1 billion in punitive damages.
Man fuck these comments. He explicitly said he wanted to ruin the rest of her life. He intentionally posted them with her full name and address, endangering her. And to ruin her chance at getting/keeping a job. Dude does deserve to have his wages garnished for the rest of his life, at least there's a cap on UNLIKE WHAT HE TRIED TO DO TO HER!
112Most of the disgusting comments are at least being criticized directly. Can’t silence the fuckheads, but you can appreciate other people dunking on them, at least
23Dude does deserve to have his wages garnished for the rest of his life
I agree.
However, if he made 100k a year and had to pay all of that, his life would have to last 12 million years. Just seems like some of the maths here is a bit off. But maybe I just don't understand the American justice system.
19I mean we do multiple life sentences or life + so many years so I don't see why the same logic wouldn't apply when the penalty is monetary. It's a super high number to ensure he's paying the rest of his life, even if he suddenly comes into a bunch of money. It's intended as a warning.
I mean how much money can you put on the price of someone's life, safety, or missed future potential earnings? I think it was just a huge number to "ruin the rest of his life" as he attempted to do.
For example, the McDonald's coffee lawsuit. The coffee was so hot it melted that lady's skin together. And this was an ongoing issue that McDonald's had been warned of several times and didn't listen. So while the lady was just trying to get her medical costs covered, the jury awarded an additional $2.7m in punitive damages because McDonald's didn't listen. Punitive damages are literally money as punishment.
12
He’ll be paying that off for a while
90Sounds like he was charged in absentia, so more symbolic than anything, sadly. I hope she gets some money though.
46Yeah. Sadly, the quote “If you owe the bank a thousand dollars, it’s your problem; if you owe them a billion, it’s their problem” applies here too. Hopefully she bleeds him dry and maybe some prison time too.
39
His wages will be garnished forever. He's been sentenced to destitution forever. He'd be better off just leaving the country.
27I'm hoping he's a US citizen so he won't be able to avoid paying US taxes anywhere he goes without also getting a new identity and going into permanent hiding. As long as his life is destroyed far more comprehensively than his attempt to destroy hers, I'm happy.
Well done that jury. This is not just about a very large settlement, it's a very newsworthy settlement. It's impossible to measure the impact on crimes that don't happen but I reckon there will be a fair few potential perpetrators of this sort of crime who might just manage to get a fucking grip because of this. And a fair few victims who find a way to exact an entirely justified revenge on those who fail to grow the fuck up anyway.
25He would have been better off not trying to ruin her life and put her directly in harms way.
Putting up naked pictures of someone with their name and address? This is a man who wanted her raped or dead.
Fuck your sympathy for him having consequences for his own actions.
19I wouldn't say he is sentenced to destitution. Wage garnishment is capped at 25% of disposable income. And you keep a minimum of 217.5 per week (30 hours of minimum wage a week).
A 25% pay cut certainly hurts but depending on his income he could still have a decent life.
The amount is ridiculous but even a more reasonable sentence around 500k-5mil would probably not change anything for his situation. Most people wouldn't pay that off in their lifetime at 25% of income.
19Permanently Deleted
5
Probably $100-200 per month depending on his salary.
It's a bit like those cases where a defendant gets 54 life sentences + 100 years. Only in America.
1
Permanently Deleted
39The problem is not the he got a laughably high fine, it's that the others don't. I think something in the hundreds of thousands would be more appropriate for a private individual. I expect an appeal to reign that in some, if filed.
4
Dude doesn't sound like the kind of guy who has $200 million. Or could ever earn it in a lifetime.
36This is effectively making him pay for it, quite literally, for the rest of his life. Imo that sounds like a more severe punishment than if he were actually rich enough to pay all at once and just end it early.
16Who knows, with inflation the way it is, maybe it'll be $200M for a Big Mac by the time he retires. ;)
3
$200 million for past and future mental anguish and $1 billion in punitive damages
NB: Texas caps punitive damages to $750k.
33Yep. And that’s rough. BigOilCorp 750k is lunch money. So that’s just shit.
Sure it’ll crush this guy though…
14So 200.75 million. Still not bad
But still, largely symbolic
11So what's the point of such a high number that literally only a handful of people could actually pay? Headlines?
3Exactly, judge wanted to make a point.
This makes it national news.
TBF, I wouldn't be surprised if a large percentage of people would of considered doing what he did, a "dick move" or "petty" but not a serious crime. This serves as a wake up call.
10
As a german, I always find amusing when americans are scared of not being able to find a job because they have nude photos online. Meanwhile I have practically seen all of my colleagues/family naked either at the job showers, sauna or nudist parks and beaches.
22Special interest groups for the U.S. porn industry propagating shame on the amateurs to boost professional porn sales. 😋
5German here too. I have no idea why, but I'd find that so incredibly weird. I guess I grew up in a very prude family. I'd love to be more open towards nudity because why the fuck not, there's nothing inherently sexual or weird about naked people, but I really struggle with that
3
Fuck that guy. Deserves to have his life ruined. That just karma.
21This hopefully serves as an effective deterrent to any potential sickos out there.
14How exactly is it a deterrent?
I mean, the guy clear doesn't have or will ever have $1.2 Billion or anything even close. So clear he won't actually be paying almost all of this. It's like threatening to take something away you don't have in the firstplace?
So what is the actual punishment then?
7
Guy tried to ruin his ex's life and got Uno Reverse Card'd, lol.
6Im pretty sure he can file for bankruptcy. Everything he owns will be gone but he can start fresh.
4at what he likely will be able to afford, he can pay her a thousand per month and he'll only be paying until the entire galaxy has made a full rotation, a full 100.000 years.
I get the point, but this 1.2 billion is just ridiculous.
Yes, this guy is an asshole, yes he needs to be punished, yes he needs to get punched in the dick for all I care but... In reality, worst case, she will likely suffer no more negative effects of this after 5 years whereas this dude can effectively kill himself because even if he wins 20 lotteries in a row, he still won't be able to get rid of this one. Punishment doesn't fit the crime here.
1So where can I see these pics?
-5Look, I get that she was wronged, but unless the defendant is Google or Microsoft, leveling damages like this is egregious and absurd.
-17They may have well awarded 150 billion dollars worth of damages. There's no way it'll ever be paid so what's the goal here? Showcase an astronomical amount as a flex?
6Yes, kind of like sentencing somebody to hundreds or years or multiple lifetimes for mass murder.
3
The point is not really the money. The point is the headline and the fact that there are remedies for when you can't pay a judgement. Like others said, his wages will be garnished forever. And this is one of the largest civil judgements ever. That plus the salacious nature means that anytime this guy's name is searched for, it will be beside this. It won't leave him.
Until we get better laws for things like revenge porn where there are actual criminal penalties, this is probably the best we can do.
4You can't bleed a rock.
2
-41There's a time and a place...
3- 1
Oh for fucks sakes. We have people who were wrongly imprisoned and spent decades in jail and they get a couple of hundred Gs and this lady is awarded $1.2B because someone saw her hoo-ha. We really have fucked up morals. The award amount is so obnoxious that I'm almost glad she'll never see a dime of it. This is just a mockery of justice.
-97Just because we can do better in one department doesn't mean it's bad we're doing good in another department.
49You are glad she won't get any kind of compensation for what she has to endure?
27I think it's an absurd ruling as well, but I don't feel bad for the douchebag in question. I don't really understand how they came up with the numbers. 1 billion in punitive damages? Based on what? Crazy.
But I'm fine with the guy being financially ruined for it. He deserves that much.
11He posted her real name and address along with those videos and pics of her, which is basically opening her up to being attacked. He also threatened her job prospects and threatened to continue harassing her for the rest of her life. I agree that there should be more paid out to wrongly imprisoned people, but this was more than just having her hoo-ha shown.
5Dieselgate cost VW $15B which affected literally millions of people on a global scale over over a decade of gaming emissions standards.
The Enron accounting scandal cost $7B and involved one of the richest corporations in the nation.
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill cost BP $20B and caused irreparable damage to the environment down there.
But yeah, having your pics posted online and one's address leaked is SURELY on a similar level to these other crimes. Oh, definitely! /s
-4
Wow, you're a serious dickbag, aren't ya
2You can call out the hypocrisy without minimizing her suffering. "They saw your bits, so what" is a ridiculous response to having your private sex videos shared with everyone you know
0She was awarded 200 mil with the 1B in punitive damages, which the state caps at 750k.
So 200.75 mil total in the end.
200 mil is still ridiculous, so your point still stands ¯\_ (ツ) _/¯
-21
