Texas woman awarded $1.2bn in revenge porn case

A woman has been awarded $1.2bn (£944m) after the jury ruled that she was the victim of revenge porn. The woman, from Texas filed a harassment lawsuit against her former boyfriend in 2022 after she alleged that he posted intimate pictures of her online to "publicly shame" her after a break-up.

The woman’s, who is identified as ‘DL’ is court documents, lawyers’ said the settlement is a win for victims of "image-based sexual abuse".

"While a judgement in this case is unlikely to be recovered, the compensatory verdict gives DL back her good name," said Bradford Gilde, the lead trial lawyer, in a statement.

"We hope the staggering amount of this verdict sends a message of deterrence and prevents others from engaging in this despicable activity," Mr Gilde added.

According to the BBC, the lawyers had originally asked the jury for $100m in damages. Meanwhile, court documents show the woman and her former boyfriend began dating in 2016.

During their relationship, the woman had shared intimate photos of herself with the defendant. But after a break-up in 2021, he was accused of having posted the photos on social media platforms and adult websites without her consent.

Allegedly he sent links of the photos to her friends and family through a publicly accessible Dropbox folder. He was also accused of having access to her phone, social media accounts and email, as well as to the camera system at her mother’s home, which he used to spy on her.

At one point, the defendant allegedly sent the woman a message: "You will spend the rest of your life trying and failing to wipe yourself off the internet. Everyone you ever meet will hear the story and go looking. Happy Hunting."

The woman’s lawyers claim her former boyfriend posted the pictures "to inflict a combination of psychological abuse, domestic violence and sexual abuse".

US media report the defendant did not show up in court and did have an attorney to represent him. He was ordered to pay the woman $200m for past and future mental anguish, as well as $1bn in exemplary damages.

Revenge porn cases in the US have reached high settlements in the past. In 2018, a woman from California was awarded $6.8m after her former partner shared explicit photographs of her on porn sites. Meanwhile, a high profile case involving two UK reality TV stars saw former Love Island contestant Georgia Harrison awarded £207,900 from jailed Stephen Bear in July. Bear was found guilty of sharing a revenge porn video of the pair of them and was also jailed for 21-months.