AP February 2, 2015, 10:04 PM
Man charged in running revenge porn site convicted
SAN DIEGO - A San Diego man charged with running a so-called revenge porn website where people posted nude pictures of their ex-lovers - and then charging the victims to take down the images - was convicted Monday of 27 felony charges.
Kevin Bollaert, 28, was found guilty Monday of identity theft and extortion. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
The San Diego County Superior Court jury was unable to reach verdicts on two charges of identity theft and conspiracy and a judge declared a mistrial on the counts.
It was believed to be the first conviction of a revenge porn website operator, although two months a Los Angeles man who posted a topless photo of his ex-girlfriend on Facebook was sentenced to a year in jail for violating California's new revenge porn law.
That law wasn't used against Ballaert.
CBS News 8 - San Diego, CA News Station - KFMB Channel 8
The term revenge porn is used because most of the explicit images have been posted online by former lovers in attempts to shame their former partners after a breakup.
Prosecutors said that in 2012 and 2013, Bollaert allowed people to anonymously post more than 10,000 images, mainly of women, on his now-defunct ugotposted.com website without the knowledge of those in the pictures. The victims' names, cities where they lived and other information such as links to their Facebook profiles also were posted, authorities alleged.
Bollaert also ran another now-defunct website, changemyreputation.com, where victims could go and be charged up to $350 to have the images removed.
Prosecutors said he earned tens of thousands of dollars from the scheme.
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