‘Revenge Porn’ website yougotposted.com operator gets convicted

‘Revenge Porn’ yougotposted.com owner gets convicted; could face upto 20 years prison time

Update # Kevin Bollaert was sentenced Friday to 18 years in custody after being convicted of operating a “revenge porn” website that included naked and sexually explicit pictures of women posted by angry ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands.

Bollaert was ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution to his victims and a $10,000 fine. Bollaert will be allowed to serve the sentence in a county jail rather than state prison under the judge’s ruling.

The man responsible for running revenge porn site ‘yougotposted.com’ has been found guilty on account of identity theft and extortion charges. Kevin Bollaert was running ‘yougotposted.com’ website which allowed spurned lovers to post nsfw images of their exes for shaming them. By posting these kind of images the spurned lovers hoped to exact revenge on their ex-girlfriend/boyfriend for leaving/ditching them. For the same reason, the act of demeaning and slandering exes by posting such intimate images is known as ‘revenge porn.’

Kevin Bollaert aged 27 was found guilty on both counts by the San Diego County Superior Court jury after 2 ½ days of deliberations and would be sentenced on April 3, 2014.  As per the existing laws in California, he could face prison time of upto 20 years however it should be noted that he hasnt been tried under the new revenge porn laws enacted by California state which provides for stiffer sentence and penalties.

Prosecutors said Boellart, using the handle Vindictive2786, ran a website called YouGotPosted.com, which allowed spurned lovers to post explicit pictures of women.  Bollaert’s website, yougotposted.com which hosted photo archives and images of people without their permission, has already been taken down by the Federal Trade Commission due to complaints received from the persons affected by it.

Ugotposted hosted around 10000 images between 2012 and 2013.  The website allowed spurned lovers to post intimate images of their exes anonymously. People used yougotposted to post intimate images and sometimes other personal information like exes name, the city they lived in and Facebook ids to name and shame their ex-girlfriends/boyfriends though mostly of ex-girlfriends.

Bollaert used this site as a business by offering image/data removal services on another website for a charge. The prosecution said that Bollaert would charge upwards of $350 from the affected person who would like the images/data to be removed from ugotposted.

The defence argued that while what Bollaert and ugotposted were doing may be immoral but it didnt break any laws.  However the jury disagreed with Bollaert’s defence attorneys and found him guilty on 27 felony counts including identity theft and extortion.  It remains to be seen how much Bollaert will be sentenced on both counts as this is a first indictment for revenge porn and may be used as an example for future cases in United States and world over.