“I just don’t want to be involved in that kind of website anymore,” Kevin Bollaert told KFMB. “I want to do good things with my life.”
Bollaert, 27, of San Diego, is accused of creating one website that allowed people to post explicit images of people without their permission, and creating another one soliciting payments to get the photographs taken down.
Authorities on Tuesday charged Bollaert with 31 felony counts of conspiracy, identity theft and extortion, the state attorney general’s office said.
Court documents allege that in December 2012, Bollaert created the website ugotposted.com, which allowed for the posting of sexually explicit photographs of people without their permission.
“This website published intimate photos of unsuspecting victims and turned their public humiliation and betrayal into a commodity with the potential to devastate lives,” Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said.
The sexually explicit material, primarily of women, was routinely posted by angry former boyfriends and ex-husbands, authorities said. It contained their real names and links to their Facebook profiles.
Prosecutors allege Bollaert also created a second website, changemyreputation.com, that charged up to $350 to remove the content, the documents said.
Bollaert made tens of thousands of dollars through the website, prosecutors allege.
Neither website was operational Wednesday morning.
A 20-year-old Reno, Nevada, woman whose nude pictures appeared on the site told KFMB that she didn’t know how the photos got there, but that it was devastating.
“You should have seen me. I was a wreck. I was bawling my eyes out,” the woman said. “That’s me, that’s my personal nakedness, and everyone can see it now.”
Bollaert denied doing anything illegal.
“I don’t feel like I’ve committed any crime,” he said, adding that he knows why there’s an uproar.
“I understand that a lot of people would be upset by what would happen and be hurt,” Bollaert said.
KFMB reported that court documents contained pleas to the website from women who said the postings resulted in nearly around-the-clock harassment from creepy men.
“I have gone to the police, I’ve had a restraining order put in place because of this site, (and) my phone has been going off EVERY 2 MINUTES with strange men sending inappropriate things to me,” one woman, who said she was a minor when the photographs were posted, wrote to the website, according to the court documents cited by KFMB.
“It’s disgusting. Also, I’ve had to … have a sexual harassment charge put in place in court because of this. I don’t know what gets you off about ruining people’s lives, but I was underage in the photos posted of me so, yes, you are showing child pornography,” she wrote.
Sonya Hamasak contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
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