SAN DIEGO, Calif. – On Monday, a jury convicted Kevin Bollaert, once the webmaster of the now-defunct sites UGotPosted.com and ChangeMyReputation.com, of 27 criminal counts, including charges of extortion and identity theft.
The jury could not reach a verdict on two other charges — one for individual identity theft charges and one for conspiracy — resulting in the declaration of a mistrial on those two counts.
At trial, Bollaert’s attorney Emily Rose-Weber argued her client’s site might have been “sleazy” or “immoral,” but didn’t rise to the level of criminality.
“It’s gross, it’s offensive, but it’s not illegal,” Rose-Weber said, conceding Bollaert’s business model may have preyed on “human weakness,” but asserting it was the end-users who uploaded images to the site who had broken the law.
Evidently, the jury didn’t see things quite the same way, at least with respect to 27 of the 29 charges entered against Bollaert, who now reportedly faces up to 20 years in prison.
While he waits to find out how severe his punishment will (or won’t) be, Bollaert either must come up with a fairly substantial chunk of change to post bail, or do his waiting in a jail cell.
Rose-Weber pleaded with the court to release Bollaert until sentencing, and to merely impose restrictions on the conditions of his release. It might be beneficial for the court to see how Bollaert conducts himself between conviction and sentencing, Rose-Weber suggested.
Deputy Attorney General Tawnya Austin countered that Bollaert belongs in jail while awaiting his sentence — not due to flight risk, but because he might seek to do further damage to the victims who were his accusers in the case.
“He is a vindictive individual who takes pleasure out of harming people,” Austin said, noting that one of the screen names used by Bollaert is “Vindictive.”
“His tool of destruction happens to be the one thing that we cannot easily monitor,” Austin said of Bollaert’s use of the internet as a means of harassing his victims. “That is his area of expertise.”
Evidently, Judge David Gill found Austin’s argument more persuasive, as he ordered Bollaert detained and set bail at $450,000.
During trial, documents shown to the jury included the text of emails from distraught women whose likenesses were uploaded to Bollaert’s site, demanding the removal of the images — and often being taunted and ridiculed by Bollaert in response.
“This is an individual who has no moral compass,” Austin said.
Oddly underlining the prosecutor’s point, Rose-Weber at one point told the jury Bollaert “didn’t think he did anything wrong,” something Bollaert himself previously asserted.
“I don’t feel like I’ve committed any crime,” he said last month prior to trial, while conceding he did “understand that a lot of people would be upset by what would happen and be hurt.”
However he might feel about his actions now, Bollaert won’t find out how the judge feels for another two months: His sentencing hearing is set for April 3.
