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 Kevin Boellart, 28, was found guilty on 27 felony counts by a San
Diego County Superior jury after 2-1/2 days of deliberation,
according to the California Attorney General's Office, which
prosecuted the case.
Jurors were unable to reach verdicts on one count each of identity
theft and conspiracy.
Boellart was arrested in 2013, shortly after Governor Jerry Brown
signed a first-in-the-nation law targeting so-called revenge porn
websites. Prosecutors said he was the first defendant prosecuted
under the law.
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission banned a revenge porn site
operator from the web in the first federal civil enforcement action
against a similar site.
Prosecutors said Boellart, using the handle Vindictive2786, ran a
website called YouGotPosted.com, which allowed spurned lovers to
post explicit pictures of women.
 The site required posters to provide links to Facebook pages, the
victims’ names, addresses, phone numbers and social media.
When the women tried to have their pictures removed, Boellart and a
partner would demand more photos and private information,
prosecutors said.
Prosecutors have said Boellart's site, which is no longer
operational, had featured over 10,000 sexually explicit photos, and
that he charged women up to $350 each to remove them. In opening
arguments, Deputy Attorney General Tawnya Austin said the site
amounted to "21st century blackmail."
According to a criminal complaint filed by prosecutors, Boellart
netted more than $10,000 between December 2012 and September 2013
from women whose pictures had been posted and were removed.
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Many whose images ended up on the YouGotPosted.com site eventually
paid another website linked to the revenge porn site to have the
pictures removed, not realizing it was operated by the same people,
Austin said.
Boellart’s lawyer argued at trial that Boellart was running a
legitimate business.
“The question is whether what is distasteful and immoral is
illegal,” Emily Rose Weber told the jury during trial.
Boellart, who was taken into custody after the verdict, faces a
maximum of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on April 3.
(Reporting by Marty Graham; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Peter
Cooney)
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