Another Revenge Porn Extortion Site Operator Going To Jail

Sentencing revenge porn extortionists seems to be all over the place. Craig Brittain, who basically originated the extortionate process of not just running a revenge porn website, but combining it with a (pretending to be) separate "pay us and we'll get your naked photos taken down" service, had his wrists duly slapped by the FTC earlier this year. Shortly after that, Kevin Bollaert, who more or less copied Brittain's plan, got sentenced to 18 years in jail (which he's currently in the process of appealing). Hunter Moore, who is often credited with being the first one to set up a big revenge porn site (without the corresponding extortionate takedowns, but apparently with hiring people to hack into computers to get copies of naked photos to post), took a plea deal with somewhere between two and seven years in jail.

And, now, Casey Meyering, who also copied Brittain's plan -- almost exactly -- and who also took a plea deal a few weeks ago, has been sentenced to three years in jail (which he can't appeal, due to the plea deal). Adam Steinbaugh, who spends his spare time hunting down revenge porn operators, provides a bit of background:

In June of 2013, I documented how Meyering had ripped off an extortion scheme pioneered by another revenge porn site operator, Craig Brittain. Meyering created Takedownhammer.info, copying Brittain's Takedownhammer.com (word for word), and solicited payments to this "independent" service using a Google Wallet account clearly linked to Meyering's drum-lessons business.

When Meyering was arrested in February of 2014, he was found in a Tulsa hotel room, drunk. He subsequently told the court he was homeless, bankrupt, and had nobody to ask for financial assistance to hire an attorney.

It seems like the sentencing is all over the place with these guys. However, at the very least, it seems to have scared most revenge porn sites away from the US.

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