On April 3, 2015, Kevin Christopher Bollaert, of San Diego, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for running a “revenge porn” website in which he allowed people to post nude pictures of their ex-lovers. Bollaert also made tens of thousands of dollars from victims who paid him to take the images down. The prison sentence followed a jury conviction on 21 counts of identity theft and six counts of extortion.
“This case was the result of a six-month investigation by California Department of Justice (DOJ) special agents,” said Alan Barcelona, president of the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA). “It is also believed to be the first criminal prosecution of a cyber-exploitation website operator in the country. Bollaert humiliated the victims by posting sexually explicit photos online for the whole world to see. Then, he took $350 dollars from them as a charge to remove the photos.”
DOJ special agents arrested Bollaert on December 10, 2013 after discovering he allowed people to post more than 10,000 images, mostly of women, on his website, UGotPosted.com. The photos were posted from December 2, 2012 to September 17, 2013 and unlike many other revenge porn websites where the subject of the photos is anonymous, ugotposted.com required the poster to include the subject’s full name, location, age and Facebook profile link.
California Penal Code sections 530.5 and 653m (b) make it illegal to willfully obtain someone’s personal identifying information, including name, age and address, for any unlawful purpose, including with the intent to annoy or harass.
Bollaert created a second website, changemyreputation.com, which he used when individuals contacted ugotposted.com requesting that images be removed from the site. He offered to remove the content for a fee of up to $350, which could be paid using an online PayPal account.
According to court documents, Ballaert told investigators that he made around $900 per month from advertising on the site. Records obtained from his changemyreputation.com PayPal account indicate he received payments from victims totaling tens of thousands of dollars.
