A Texas woman has been awarded more than $1 billion by a jury after it ruled she was the victim of “revenge porn,” or imaged-based sexual abuse, by her ex-boyfriend.
The woman, identified in the lawsuit only as Jane Doe or D.L., was awarded $200 million for past and future mental anguish and $1 billion in exemplary damages, the law firm representing her announced on Aug. 11.
D.L.’s ex-boyfriend, Marques Jamal Jackson, was ordered to pay the fines after the jury reviewed evidence that he had responded to the couple’s breakup in 2020 “with the intent to embarrass, harass, torment, humiliate, and publicly shame” her.
According to the lawsuit, the former couple began dating in 2016 in Texas but later moved to Chicago after D.L. was offered a job.
After a few years of dating, the two had a “long and drawn out break up” that began in early 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic and officially ended around October 2021. Amid the breakup, the woman moved back to Harris County, Texas, to temporarily live with her mother.
‘Intimate Materials’ Sent to Family, Friends
“Importantly, Mr. Jackson was explicitly unauthorized to login to any of Plaintiff’s personal accounts after their breakup,” the lawsuit states.Mr. Jackson also had access to “certain visual intimate materials” pertaining to D.L., according to the lawsuit.
Following their breakup, Mr. Jackson allegedly began logging into D.L.’s mother’s home security system to spy on her, which prosecutors said she was unaware of.
He also allegedly accessed her personal and work computer accounts without her knowing, contacted her loan officer to claim she had submitted a fraudulent loan application, and distributed intimate images and videos of her on social media and various other online platforms, prosecutors said.
While sharing the intimate images of D.L. online, Mr. Jackson also intentionally included personal details about her including her home address, place of employment, and the gym she used, the lawsuit said.
He also allegedly sent links of the photos to her family, friends, and co-workers via a publicly accessible Dropbox folder.
Mr. Jackson, according to prosecutors, accessed D.L.’s bank account to pay his rent and harassed her with phone calls and text messages sent from fake phone numbers.
Revenge Porn on the Rise
As a result of Mr. Jackson’s actions, D.L. suffered “harm and mental anguish,” the lawsuit said, adding that the victim “reasonably foresees further harm will occur in the future.”Lawyers for D.L. welcomed the ruling in a statement on Aug. 11.
“We are grateful the jury took a strong stand against the defendant’s abhorrent behavior and against imaged-based sexual abuse. While a judgment in this case is unlikely to be recovered, the compensatory verdict gives D.L. back her good name,” lead trial lawyer Bradford J. Gilde, of Gilde Law Firm PLLC, said. “The punitive verdict also is the jury’s plea to raise awareness of this tech-fueled national epidemic. We will forever admire D.L.’s courage in fighting back.”
“We hope the staggering amount of this verdict sends a message of deterrence and prevents others from ... engaging in this despicable activity,” the attorney added.
According to the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), 80 percent of nonconsensual porn is revenge porn, with a 2019 study showing a 400 percent increase in the number of revenge porn victims from 2016. The situation worsened further during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to NAAG, in part due to a rise in people messaging over dating apps.
Nearly all U.S. states have legislation in place prohibiting the distribution or production of nonconsensual pornography.
