$5.15 million awarded to victim in Monterey County revenge porn case

A revenge porn case in Monterey County has come to a conclusion.

A Monterey County jury unanimously awarded more than $5 million to a female revenge porn victim for her pain and suffering.

The 35-year-old victim alleged Defendant Andre Pompey, who has worked in surveillance, secretly recorded the victim having sex with him and allegedly posted screenshots of the secret video on Facebook.

The claims at trial included that Mr. Pompey intended to humiliate and shame the victim in revenge for her not wanting to spend time with him, and tagged the sex photos with the victim’s name so that her hundreds of Facebook friends could see identify the victim in the photos.

The jury unanimously awarded $5 million to compensate the victim for her emotional distress and mental suffering, and awarded an additional $150,000 in punitive damages to “punish Mr. Pompey for his intentional wrongdoing.”

At trial the victim was supported by a witness who dated Mr. Pompey after the victim broke up with Mr. Pompey. The witness testified about Mr. Pompey’s attempts to take revenge against her after she later ended the relationship.

Testimony also revealed the victim’s battles with suicidal thoughts following the posts, and her struggles to overcome depression for the sake of her children. The victim’s 18-year-old daughter testified that after the incident her mother was distracted in conversations and “was not even there”, and concluded by testifying that she “just wants her mom back.”

Mr. Pompey, in his defense, argued when he was 12 years old his mother had attempted to commit suicide by overdosing on pills. He testified that he found his mother under water in in the tub after discovering that his father had cheated on her. Pompey testified about the effect this has had on him throughout his life, including his own battles with depression.

The victim’s trial attorney, Katrina Saleen of the Broderick Saleen Law Firm in Palo Alto said, “This verdict should send a strong message that revenge porn will not be tolerated, and hopefully will act to prevent others from committing this type of online attack against women. Revenge porn is a term given to sexually explicit images or videos of a person posted on the Internet without their consent, typically by a former sexual partner trying to cause them distress or embarrassment.”

With the rise of social media and the ease of video recording and sharing videos and photographs on the internet, instances of revenge porn have steadily increased. In 2015, California enacted criminal laws which prohibit the secret recording of a sex act and the posting of sexually explicit photos without consent, but they are misdemeanors and too often the punishment for these attacks on the criminal side are too lax. In Mr. Pompey’s own words at trial, he was only given a “slap on the wrist” in the related criminal case, where he plead no contest to distribution of sexually explicit materials without consent.