A Texas woman was awarded $1.2 billion in damages last week after she sued her former boyfriend and accused him of sending intimate images of her to her family, friends and co-workers from fake online accounts.
The woman, who is identified only by the initials D.L. in court documents, sued her former boyfriend, Marques Jamal Jackson, claiming he had psychologically and sexually abused her by distributing so-called revenge porn, a term for sexually explicit photos or videos of someone that are shared without consent.
The couple started dating in 2016 and were living together in Chicago in early 2020 when they began a “long and drawn-out break up,” according to the lawsuit. D.L. temporarily moved to her mother’s house in Texas and Mr. Jackson began accessing the security system there to spy on her, the lawsuit said.
In October 2021, the couple officially ended their relationship and D.L. told Mr. Jackson that she no longer wanted him to have access to what the lawsuit described as “visual intimate material” of her that she had allowed him to have while they were a couple.
Instead, he posted the images on several social media platforms and websites, including a pornographic website, and in a publicly accessible folder on the online file-sharing service Dropbox, the lawsuit said. He identified her in the material, using her name and address, and images of her face. He created fake social media pages and email accounts to share the material with her family, friends and co-workers, including by sending them a link to the Dropbox folder. On the social media pages where he had posted the images, he tagged accounts for her employer and for her personal gym.
The lawsuit says that this was still happening days before the complaint was filed in April 2022.
Mr. Jackson also used D.L.’s personal bank account to pay his rent, harassed her with calls and text messages from masked numbers, and told her loan officer that she had submitted a fraudulent loan application, the lawsuit said.
In a March 2022 email to D.L. cited in the lawsuit, Mr. Jackson said, “You will spend the rest of your life trying and failing to wipe yourself off the internet.”
Mr. Jackson could not be reached for comment. It was not clear if he had a lawyer.
He also did not appear in court on Wednesday, when a jury in Houston ordered him to pay $200 million for past and future mental anguish and $1 billion in punitive damages.
Man fuck these comments. He explicitly said he wanted to ruin the rest of her life. He intentionally posted them with her full name and address, endangering her. And to ruin her chance at getting/keeping a job. Dude does deserve to have his wages garnished for the rest of his life, at least there’s a cap on UNLIKE WHAT HE TRIED TO DO TO HER!
Dude does deserve to have his wages garnished for the rest of his life
I agree.
However, if he made 100k a year and had to pay all of that, his life would have to last 12 million years. Just seems like some of the maths here is a bit off. But maybe I just don’t understand the American justice system.
I mean we do multiple life sentences or life + so many years so I don’t see why the same logic wouldn’t apply when the penalty is monetary. It’s a super high number to ensure he’s paying the rest of his life, even if he suddenly comes into a bunch of money. It’s intended as a warning.
I mean how much money can you put on the price of someone’s life, safety, or missed future potential earnings? I think it was just a huge number to “ruin the rest of his life” as he attempted to do.
For example, the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit. The coffee was so hot it melted that lady’s skin together. And this was an ongoing issue that McDonald’s had been warned of several times and didn’t listen. So while the lady was just trying to get her medical costs covered, the jury awarded an additional $2.7m in punitive damages because McDonald’s didn’t listen. Punitive damages are literally money as punishment.
It’s a super high number to ensure he’s paying the rest of his life, even if he suddenly comes into a bunch of money. It’s intended as a warning.
Yes, I get that. Still I find it a very strange, even macabre. I made the point in a couple of other comments, but got no useful replies so far.
It seems to me this guy was basically convicted to living at “minimum wage” or at least some minimum that can’t be taken from him, so he can cover his basic needs.
So he is convicted to being poor. Nothing else. But, like there is actual poor people with a very similar standard of living, that did nothing wrong. It just doesn’t seem fair. How shitty must it be, as a poor person, that your neighbour is there only because he was convited to have your shitty live?
Also, what if he was already super poor before that and he won’t come into any fortune. What money are you even gonna take from him? Does that mean if you’re already poor you can just publish revengeporn, because what are they gonna take from you?
Like, if you’re poor … what is the “warning”? That they make sure you gonna be poor forever? Chances are that would be the case anyway.
Also, what incentive does this guy now have to actually contribute to society by doing anything more than the minimum he needs to afford?
He’ll be paying that off for a while
Sounds like he was charged in absentia, so more symbolic than anything, sadly. I hope she gets some money though.
His wages will be garnished forever. He’s been sentenced to destitution forever. He’d be better off just leaving the country.
I’m hoping he’s a US citizen so he won’t be able to avoid paying US taxes anywhere he goes without also getting a new identity and going into permanent hiding. As long as his life is destroyed far more comprehensively than his attempt to destroy hers, I’m happy.
Well done that jury. This is not just about a very large settlement, it’s a very newsworthy settlement. It’s impossible to measure the impact on crimes that don’t happen but I reckon there will be a fair few potential perpetrators of this sort of crime who might just manage to get a fucking grip because of this. And a fair few victims who find a way to exact an entirely justified revenge on those who fail to grow the fuck up anyway.
well if he was to leave the US and never return there’s very little risk in not paying the bills. it’s likely little would happen if you came back to visit for the holidays, either
I wouldn’t say he is sentenced to destitution. Wage garnishment is capped at 25% of disposable income. And you keep a minimum of 217.5 per week (30 hours of minimum wage a week).
A 25% pay cut certainly hurts but depending on his income he could still have a decent life.
The amount is ridiculous but even a more reasonable sentence around 500k-5mil would probably not change anything for his situation. Most people wouldn’t pay that off in their lifetime at 25% of income.
Hardly - he has an SSN. Any job that pays taxes he’ll be garnished. Even if he manages to hide his identity with a fake ssn, his life as it was is ruined. Definitely a form of justice considering he literally was trying to ruin her life through these actions.
Companies have been fined way less when their product literally kills someone.
Dude doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who has $200 million. Or could ever earn it in a lifetime.
This is effectively making him pay for it, quite literally, for the rest of his life. Imo that sounds like a more severe punishment than if he were actually rich enough to pay all at once and just end it early.
$200 million for past and future mental anguish and $1 billion in punitive damages
NB: Texas caps punitive damages to $750k.
So what’s the point of such a high number that literally only a handful of people could actually pay? Headlines?
