Man jailed under California 'revenge porn' law

The Straits Times, 4 Dec 2014

LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles man who posted topless photos of his former girlfriend online to get back at her became the first person sentenced under California's new "revenge porn" law.

The term revenge porn refers to the posting of nude photos of a person on the Internet for the purpose of getting even or causing emotional harm, The Washington Post reported.

Enacted last year, the California law makes it illegal to distribute private, sexually explicit photos or videos online without the consent of the person who appears in them, the Post said. Originally the law covered only photos and videos taken by someone else, but in August it was expanded to include selfies, it added.

A jury found Noe Iniguez, 36, guilty early this week of violating two restraining orders and the state's revenge porn law after deliberating for seven days.

Prosecutors told the court that Iniguez's former girlfriend of four years got the first restraining order in November 2011 after they broke up and he started sending harassing text messages to her.

Iniguez followed up a month later by posting, using a fake name, insulting comments about the woman on her employer's website. In March, he posted a topless photo of her, labelling her "drunk" and a "slut" and encouraging her employer to fire her.

Besides sentencing Iniguez to a year's jail, the judge ordered him to serve 36 months' probation, attend domestic violence counselling and stay away from his former girlfriend.

"California's new revenge porn law gives prosecutors a valuable tool to protect victims whose lives and reputations have been upended by a person they once trusted," Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said in a statement.

"This conviction sends a strong message that this type of malicious behaviour will not be tolerated."

California is one of 13 states to have enacted a revenge porn law since last year. Such laws vary from state to state.

In Arizona, one of only two states where posting revenge porn is a felony on the first offence, a federal district court judge blocked enforcement of the law last week after the American Civil Liberties Union sued, the Post said.

The civil rights group argued that Arizona's law is so broad that it criminalises artists, historians, booksellers and others who may publish nude images for reasons other than revenge. An example cited is the Pulitzer Prize­winning photo of a nude Vietnamese child, who had been severely burned, fleeing her bombed village.

How Singapore tackles such offences
By Lim Yi Han, The Straits Times, 4 Dec 2014

FOR posting nude and compromising photos of other people, one can be charged under a few laws in Singapore.

These cover electronically transmitting obscene objects, which carries a jail term of up to three months and/or a fine; insulting a woman's modesty, which incurs a maximum penalty of a one-year jail term and fine; as well as criminal intimidation if a threat was made. The punishment for criminal intimidation is up to two years' jail and/or a fine.

Criminal lawyer Josephus Tan said: "Such an offence is not uncommon in Singapore and we have seen successful prosecution of such cases. A handful of cases here also involve the extortion element, where it's more of doing it for money instead of revenge.

"I think it's well-covered in our Penal Code, and it's fine as it is, falling short of giving it a specific category."

Last month, a 36-year-old man was arrested for extorting money from his former girlfriend in exchange for not posting compromising photos of her online.

In April, a 52-year-old who posted six nude photos of his former girlfriend online was sentenced to six weeks' jail.