Revenge porn cases: Women win million-dollar-plus judgments in Nassau

In a first for Nassau County and New York, two women won seven-figure judgments brought under the state’s 2019 “revenge porn” law.

Acting Supreme Court Justice Felice Muraca awarded Kimberly Facey $2 million in damages, plus attorney fees, from Valley Stream resident Stacyann Thompson, the woman who posted the explicit videos of her online.

Danielle Lawrence, of Kingston, Jamaica, was awarded $1.4 million, plus attorney fees, from Thompson and Rodrick Brown, a former live-in boyfriend of Thompson’s.

Under the 5-year-old law, it’s a crime to publish or disseminate unauthorized intimate images of another person. Perpetrators can be fined, jailed or sued for damages.

Facey said she had been dogged by a 29-second video taken on July 6, 2020, without her permission on Brown’s cellphone during his trip to Jamaica.

According to the lawsuit filed by Facey against Thompson in 2021, the phone was synced to his iPad, allowing Thompson to view her boyfriend’s infidelity.

Days later, Facey got a direct message on Instagram showing the video posted on her public account, she said in her testimony.

When confronted about the video, Brown said it had been posted by his estranged ex-girlfriend, according to the suit, and asked Thompson to remove the video.

Facey also called Thompson to ask her to take it down, she told the court in early April. But Thompson refused, Facey said.

Facey had testified that “every single attorney in Jamaica” is aware of the video. She said in court papers that she’s received messages regarding the explicit footage from people in the United States, Canada, England and other Caribbean islands.

“It’s four years after and people are still approaching me about that video,” she said last month on the witness stand. “I do not feel safe because so many persons would have seen my private moment.”

The experience has left her with post-traumatic stress disorder, she said, and her personal and professional reputation damaged.

Facey sued Thompson in Nassau County in 2021.

Thompson’s lawyer, Garfield Heslop, argued that Nassau County was not the proper venue and the court lacked jurisdiction over the case, among other things. They also countersued for defamation in June of the same year, claiming Facey falsely accused Thompson, but that case was dismissed.

Last year, Muraca found Thompson’s side was acting in “bad faith” in the case and ruled her liable in the case.

Brown also videotaped Lawrence, a college student at the time, according to a separate revenge porn suit that was heard by Muraca in Mineola.

The judge also ruled that the lawyers for Brown and Thompson had acted in “bad faith” and scheduled a series of hearings over damages.

Thompson and his attorney declined to comment on the case.

Reached by phone in April, Brown said the claims were “100% false.”

“This is all fabricated,” he told Newsday. “This is all lies. This is not revenge porn. Honestly, this is just a money grab … This is just a dispute between women and it has nothing to with me,” he said.

Mark Crawford, Brown’s lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment.