How to Bring Charges for Revenge Porn

[TimR]

My question involves criminal law for the state of: North Carolina.

My wife and I had a few sexy images posted online (Craigslist). My problem is that her ex-husband found these images, printed them, and mailed them to her parents.

Fortunately, there is a Revenge Porn law on the books in our home state of North Carolina. People found guilty of this crime are subject to felony charges.

My problem is the burden of proof and getting the police to take interest in our case. While we know beyond a reasonable doubt that it was her ex-husband we do not have a smoking gun. He has harassed us for years, suing us twice now, and posted previous harassing comments about us on-line in attempts to get us fired from our jobs. There is a pattern that suggest it was him, but the images were enclosed in an envelope sealed with tape and mailed without a return address. Thus we have probable cause, but we don't have hard evidence.

My question is how should I go about gathering evidence to present to the police that it was in fact him? What options could I explore to connect the dots and get the police to at a minimum speak to him and at best take an interest in prosecuting this?

Thanks in advance for your help,

[LegalWriter]

Sorry but your facts don't meet the requirements under the revenge porn statute. YOU posted the pictures on a public website. The statute requires that "the person discloses the image under circumstances such that he or she knew or should have known that the depicted person had a reasonable expectation of privacy." That is defined "as follows: “When a depicted person has consented to the disclosure of an image within the context of a personal relationship and the depicted person reasonably believes that the disclosure will not go beyond that relationship.” G.S. 14-190.5A(a)(5)."

[Mr. Knowitall]

The revenge porn statute, NCGS 14-190.5A, relates to disclosure of private images.

(5) Reasonable expectation of privacy. – When a depicted person has consented to the disclosure of an image within the context of a personal relationship and the depicted person reasonably believes that the disclosure will not go beyond that relationship.

If your wife's ex- took private pictures of your wife during their marriage, or had private pictures dating back to their relationship, and was now publishing them or distributing them, that would be a violation of her reasonable expectation of privacy.

But you claim that you and/or your wife posted these images publicly to Craigslist. This is not an issue in which your wife consented to the disclosure only within the context of a personal relationship. Once you put them out for the public to see, you gave up any expectation that they were private. The "revenge porn" statute thus does not apply to your situation, even if you can prove that it was her ex- who sent the pictures to her parents.

[TimR]

Hey thanks for your help. There was an admendment in June of 2017.

‘The amended statute gets rid of the “reasonable expectation of privacy” and “personal relationship” framework. Instead, it requires only that “[t]he person obtained the image without consent of the depicted person or under circumstances such that the person knew or should have known that the depicted person expected the images to remain private.’

https://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/im...-porn-statute/

[Mark47n]

You posted the pic on Craigslist. I don't really think you can claim any reasonable right to privacy. Craigslist. You cannot claim that the images are private if I can just pop over to your regional CL page and view the image with no permissions whatsoever. You may as well have posted them on a billboard as far as privacy goes.

[Mr. Knowitall]

The legislature has not yet updated the NCGS to reflect that change, which is effective 12/1/17 -- in my opinion, they should be more diligent.

Even assuming that the events occurred after that date, I don't see the statute as being applicable:

The person obtained the image without consent of the depicted person or under circumstances such that the person knew or should have known that the depicted person expected the images to remain private.

When you publicly post an image to the world, you are inviting the world to obtain your image -- if you post an image on Craigslist, it is implicit that you want the image to be available to the public at large. You can't later reasonably argue, "I didn't think that person would find it, so that person didn't have my permission to obtain it," or "Even though I made the image available to everybody on the planet who has access to the Internet, anybody seeing the image should have realized that I wanted the image to remain private."

[hr for me]

craigslist is not private. If you expected it to be, you were very wrong. You have no case, even with your addendum of the law change.

Stop putting private pictures on the internet anywhere. You never know how small the world is and who will see or forward the pictures!

[TimR]

The legislature has not yet updated the NCGS to reflect that change, which is effective 12/1/17 -- in my opinion, they should be more diligent.

Even assuming that the events occurred after that date, I don't see the statute as being applicable:

When you publicly post an image to the world, you are inviting the world to obtain your image -- if you post an image on Craigslist, it is implicit that you want the image to be available to the public at large. You can't later reasonably argue, "I didn't think that person would find it, so that person didn't have my permission to obtain it," or "Even though I made the image available to everybody on the planet who has access to the Internet, anybody seeing the image should have realized that I wanted the image to remain private."

This person obtained and redistributed the photos without our consent. " ... it requires only that “[t]he person obtained the image without consent of the depicted person".

[PayrolGuy]

You consented when you made them available to what amounts to the entire world. He may well have violated copyright law but he didn't violate the the revenge porn law.

We understand you don't like this answer and you are free to ignore it and report his actions to the police but we can't answer your original questions because nobody here believes you have a case under the law.

[TimR]

When the depicted person posted the photographs on the world wide web, it would seem that their expectation that the photographs would remain private evaporated.

It would seem that way but if you read the amendment you will see that it is no longer necessary to have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The only requirement is that the person obtained the image without consent of the depicted person.