Jury awards Texas woman $1.2 billion in revenge porn case

A Texas woman whose ex-boyfriend shared intimate photos of her online — including some taken from her mother’s home security cameras — was awarded a $1.2 billion settlement after a Houston-area jury ruled she was the victim of revenge porn.

The woman, who went by Jane Doe or D.L. in court documents, filed a lawsuit in April 2022 against her former boyfriend, Marques Jamal Jackson.

In the suit, she claims that Jackson disseminated explicit images of her across the internet — and created a website to house all of the images that he later sent to her friends, family and co-workers.

Jackson posted the intimate images of the woman, obtained while they were dating, onto social media and pornography websites “with the intent to embarrass, harass, torment, humiliate, and publicly shame” her, according to the lawsuit.

In March 2022, Jackson reportedly sent D.L. a message saying: “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.”

According to the lawsuit, the pair began dating in 2016 and by early 2020 they began a “long and drawn-out break-up.”

After ending things, D.L. left the home she shared with Jackson to move back in with her mother in Texas. It was then that Jackson then began hacking into her mother’s home security system to spy on D.L. He also then began uploading intimate images of D.L. online without her consent.

When the two had their final break-up in October 2021, D.L. reportedly told Jackson that he was no longer allowed to have “visual intimate material” of her that he previously had when they were in a relationship, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also alleges that along with the images, Jackson shared her full legal name and home address online.

A Harris County, Texas, jury ordered Jackson to pay D.L. $200 million for past and future mental anguish (compensatory damages) and $1 billion in exemplary damages.

The billion-dollar settlement is just the latest win for victims of “image-based sexual abuse,” also known as “revenge porn,” D.L.’s attorney Bradford Gilde said.

Gilde said he did not expect the billion-dollar settlement to be paid out, but that he hoped it would send a message.

The attorney lauded D.L.’s courage in the case, adding that “the staggering amount of this verdict sends a message of deterrence and prevents others from engaging in this despicable activity.”

According to the National Association of Attorneys General, by 2019, at least 40 million people had reported being victims of image-based sexual abuse.