JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – In a pair of developments with a decidedly Digital Age flare, the Missouri Senate approved a new bill which would prohibit the distribution of revenge porn, doing so the day before jury selection began in the trial of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. Greitens is charged with felony invasion of privacy for taking a picture of his then-mistress when she was partially nude, and later allegedly threatened to publish the photo if she publicly revealed the affair.
Greitens has admitted to having the alleged affair with his former hairdresser but denied he engaged in blackmail and said the affair was entirely consensual.
While the bill, HB 1558, was in the works before Greitens was charged in February, some of the lawmakers who have supported the legislation have said the governor’s case underlined the urgency of passing legislation addressing revenge porn.
“I think that Gov. Greitens’ actions have demonstrated to us that, yeah, people are paying more attention than perhaps they did before,” Sen. Jill Schupp said.
The Missouri House approved a version of the bill in February. Schupp proposed (and the Senate approved) adding an emergency clause which make the law effective and enforceable immediately upon being signed into law.
If signed into law, under HB 1558 the offense of “nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images” would be a class D felony, while “threatening the nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images” – one of the acts of which Greitens is accused in his case – is class E felony. In Missouri, class D felonies are punishable by up to seven years in prison and fines of up to $10,000, while the maximum sentence for an E felony is four years.
Under the bill, violators are also subject to a private cause of action brought by the person depicted in the image(s).
“Any successful private cause of action brought under this subsection shall result in an award equal to ten thousand dollars or actual damages, whichever is greater, and in addition shall include attorney’s fees,” the bill states. “Humiliation or embarrassment shall be an adequate show that the plaintiff has incurred damages; however, no physical manifestation of either humiliation or embarrassment is necessary for damages to be shown.”
While Greitens was charged under existing law, Sen. Gary Romine, the Senate sponsor of the proposal, noted that the law Greitens was charged under doesn’t specifically address the simple dissemination of private sexual images, as opposed to the nonconsensual taking of the photo, which is what led to the charge against Greitens.
“It is very frustrating to our law enforcement folks,” Romine said. “They really have to struggle to find a law that would be applicable to deal with this type of activity.”
The newly amended version of the bill now goes back to the House, which now has seven days to approve the measure before the current legislative session ends on May 18. The legislature has until May 30 to send bills to the governor’s office for Greitens to sign them into law.
Greitens’ office has not responded to media requests for comment as to whether the governor intends to sign the bill into law, assuming the legislature sends it his way.
